INTERVIEW: Patrick Olson emerges on off-Broadway scene
Photo: Emergence, created by and starring Patrick Olson, marries science and art for a truly unique theatrical evening. Photo courtesy of Russ Rowland / Provided by JT PR with permission.
The new off-Broadway show Emergence is a little bit of everything, according to press notes. Its creator and star, Patrick Olson, calls it a play, a dance piece, a musical, a monologue, a rock concert and a psychedelic trip. But as the show’s tagline suggests, “things are not as they seem.”
Emergence runs through Jan. 7 at the Pershing Square Signature Center on 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan. Few details are discussed about the show before one buys a ticket and jumps in, but its official website promises an exploration of the deepest aspects of human experience. Another way to describe this unique experience is to call it a theatrical conversation between science and art … with songs.
To learn more details, Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Olson, who successfully opened the show in Los Angeles before this New York City run. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
How exactly would you describe this unique show?
What this show is … depends on what you are. We meet our incredibly diverse fans in the lobby after each show and hear a striking variety of compliments from them. A 25-year-old chemist told me the messages found in the short, spoken-word segments surprised and delighted him from a scientific perspective. A 19-year-old theater major from NYU told us she loved the wild and tight choreography of the dancers, and the immersive, large-scale visuals throughout. Almost everyone feels a connection to the thundering musical performance. A 100-year-old woman in a wheelchair said she still felt weightless from the show’s uplifting message. A retired physicist and his wife (who joked that after 30 years of marriage that they agree on nothing) have returned several times because they each feel at home in it — for very different reasons.
Is there a lot of audience participation throughout this transformative journey?
There are one or two moments of direct audience participation, but the participation in the show is mostly personal and reflective. The performance is heady and trippy. We pose simple, obvious questions, such as: When do we exist? (Now, right? … well, not necessarily). And then we flip the obvious answers on their head because — as the theme of the show suggests — things are not as they seem. These patterns really engage the minds of the audience. We and the audience do a couple of actual things together, but mostly I can see “participation” by their rapt attention during spoken segments. I can hear the occasional gasp of insight. I see constant head-bobbing to the pulse of the music, and the smiles that are so present and constantly traveling across so many faces. No one needs to worry that they’ll be called out to do silly things in front of others. It’s not like that in any way, but the show is incredibly engaging. And I do make a point of illustrating from a deeply scientific perspective that everything happening in the show requires the minds of the audience as active co-creators. We work together. It’s an “us” experience.
What have you learned about yourself throughout the life of this project? Has the show transformed you?
Transformed? Oh, my gosh. I’ve experienced an utterly new identity. I’ve learned that I’m a conduit, that I’ve had a lifetime of influences I can draw from to deliver an entertaining, emotionally moving and perspective-changing experience for the audience. Not being falsely modest here, but when something really touches an audience, I don’t feel responsible. The responsibility for Emergence belongs to a thousand other people. They put the ideas in my head. All I’m doing is re-assembling and re-aligning ideas that have come from so many others. But back to identity: becoming. That’s a theme in the show. In this universe, everything is always becoming something else. And I have learned I am not exempt. I am constantly becoming something else. So are you.
Have you always been interested in science?
Nope. I was [a] humanities kid. I loved to write and to compose music. I loved art museums and concerts and all forms of performance. I used to think the humanities provided all the real and significant answers to our questions, and I thought physics was a weird, math-y field that studied pendulums and cannon ball trajectories, populated with tons of incomprehensible formulas. Yuck. No fun. Not interesting. Then over a great deal of time, I tilted over to the other side: I began to feel that physics — the study of our physical world — was in fact, everything. It is fundamental to our understanding of the deepest natures of the universe. All other sciences like biology, chemistry, astronomy branch out of physics and create the body of knowledge that drives our understanding of reality. This was a mid-life epiphany, forged over decades and driven by my professional contact with so many scientists. But now I feel different: I feel now that the most compelling world view for me combines science with the humanities. This is how we can experience the most complete and fulfilling insights into the human condition. We need science to understand the true, objective nature of the physical world. And we need the humanities — art, literature, painting, dance, sculpture, film, poetry, philosophy — to shed light on the meaning and purpose of human existence. Emergence blends these two kingdoms.
Did the success in Los Angeles directly lead to this New York City engagement?
Yes, absolutely. In Los Angeles, we received the affirmation we needed from the audience and from industry insiders who told us this thing is real, that it is deeply original, that it has a powerful effect on people, that it can entertain, emotionally move and change human perspective.
What’s the future of this show beyond this current run?
I don’t know. It’s really up to the people reading this. If they are intrigued and come to the current run of Emergence, then it will continue and grow. If not, it’s hard to say. I can tell you that my mind never stops. As a conduit, I cannot describe what next may be coming down the pipe, but it will be something.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Emergence, created by and starring Patrick Olson, continues through Jan. 7 at the Pershing Square Signature Center on 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
