INTERVIEW: WaxFactory celebrates their 20th with ‘Lulu XX’
Photo: Erika Latta co-created and stars in Lulu XX at the WaxFactory. Photo courtesy of Tasja Keetman / Provided by Everyman Agency with permission.
Lulu XX, a new show that challenges the misogyny of the male gaze in the artistic representation of women, has been selected as the production to celebrate WaxFactory’s 20th anniversary in New York City. The show, created by Ivan Talijancic and Erika Latta, revisits the heroine of Frank Wedekind’s Lulu plays, Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box.
Both Talijancic and Latta have been working on the piece for more than 20 years, but they only presented a work in progress at WaxFactory’s founding. Now, in this age of renewed feminist theater and energy, the company has decided to revisit their work and explore once again Lulu as a character.
Talijancic serves as the show’s director and designer, while Latta performs the piece. Their collaboration is a multidisciplinary approach, one that utilizes unique storytelling and a kaleidoscopic box set with projections on every inch.
Recently Talijancic exchanged emails with Hollywood Soapbox about the new production, which runs Sept. 18-28 at the Connelly Theater on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
What can audience members expect from Lulu XX?
Those who have been following our work will not be disappointed, and those who are new to the work will be pleasantly surprised! I think we are bringing our trademark cross-media approach to this material and turning it up a notch. We are working with an exciting team of extraordinary designers, half of whom are longtime collaborators, and the other half are new to the work, which brings a potent mix of fierce imagination and just plain wizardry that, even as the director of this work, just completely blows me away.
In terms of the material itself, we are boldly exploring terrain that is deeply contentious in our culture, dealing with issues of female representation and agency in the wake of #MeToo. We are investigating ways in which women have been historically relegated to certain stereotypes, which are ultimately reductive and discriminatory. Needless to say, this is a difficult, complicated territory. At times, we handle this material with a touch of absurdity that bring a humorous dimension to the work. But, to be frank, this piece also doesn’t shy away from probing some dark corners that are challenging and painful.
I do feel like that Lulu XX takes the viewer down a road that’s full of unexpected turns. It is a challenging journey, but a rewarding one as well. You just have to accept the challenge, lean in fully and buckle up for the ride.
Is the piece radically different from the work in progress that was presented 20 years ago?
To me, as a co-creator of the work (along with my fellow WaxFactory co-founder Erika Latta), it does feel radically different.
We live in radically different times now, in a new century and in a different sociopolitical paradigm, and also, as creators, we have evolved to a different level of artistry. The original work in progress was the first work Erika and I formally collaborated on under the ‘WaxFactory’ moniker, and it was the first work we made after completing our graduate studies at Columbia University, where we studied with Anne Bogart and Robert Woodruff.
Now, in 2019, there is a wealth of experience that we are applying to the work. Even though the foundations are the same, we are applying a different lens to our work. It is more sophisticated and more finely tuned. I always like to say that we’ve collected a few more tricks up our sleeves over the past 20 years, but at the same time, when we dug up the original research, script and documentation from the vault, I have to say, we did have a great deal of powerful ideas from the outset.
Did circumstances in today’s world inspire you to tell the story of Lulu now?
Most definitely. Both Erika and I had a long-standing interest in the character of Lulu. It is fascinating to deal with a female protagonist who resists reductive categorization and is simply impossible to box in. In her timelessness, Lulu is truly an outlier.
She was ahead of her times when Wedekind first wrote the play over a century ago, and still is. While the issue of gender inequality is, sadly, as old as the mankind, I never would have imagined that, 20 years after we first made a version of this piece, it would feel even more relevant now than it did when it was first created. When we started talking about which piece to create in honor of WaxFactory’s 20th anniversary, #MeToo, Time’s Up and Women’s March in D.C. were coming to the forefront on the national conversation. We immediately went to our original exploration of Lulu — it just felt like the right time to revisit this material.
As far as creating the piece, how did the collaboration work between you and Erika Latta?
In a recent interview Erika and I had with Vallejo Gantner, he commented that our collaboration outlasted the duration of most marriages — and I feel that statement speaks volumes about our collaborative ethos. Even though in many ways we are very different, I do feel like we operate on the same frequency, so we rarely feel the need to argue our points.
We have collaborated for so long at this point, we have a sort of a telepathic shorthand going. But I think we got to that point because we both have a deep understanding and respect for collaboration. We have each other’s back in everything we do. When we create, it is not about the ego; it is about what the work wants and what serves it in the best possible way.
Lulu XX is very much a case in point. While Erika is the sole performer in it, and I am the director, at the same time the roles are blurred. We very much co-authored this piece.
How much research was needed into Frank Wedekind’s original creation?
I would say that Wedekind’s Lulu plays were the diving board. When we first started devising our own piece, we truly dissected it to bits. On a side note: The first section of our piece is indeed titled ‘Autopsy.’ I should say, however, Lulu XX is not, nor does it aspire to be, an adaptation of the original. Wedekind’s writing, and, above all, his female protagonist was our inspiration, and we zeroed in on that as the starting point for the piece.
Our piece does contain some excerpts from Wedekind, but our research went in many different directions and included a multitude of sources and references, from Cindy Sherman and Susan Sontag to ancient mythology and German death metal — and, of course, Louise Brooks, who immortalized the character of Lulu in G.W. Pabst’s silent film version.
WaxFactory prides itself on its multidisciplinary work. Why is this an important facet of the company’s output?
As company’s co-founders, Erika and I both come from multifaceted backgrounds. Neither of us was ever in pursuit of a single artistic practice; we were always hybrids. Or, as one journalist christened us in an early article about WaxFactory: shape-shifters.
Because of this, we were never interested in labeling ourselves one way or another — I believe our work truly exists in a very fuzzy intersection of visual design, sound, movement, moving image, architecture, fashion and technology. While we both have MFA’s in theater, we approach our live performances in a very cinematic way. Being able to work in this way had always been important to us, and indeed, we founded the company for this very reason, because we didn’t anyone to dictate what we could or could not do within our time-based practice.
What’s the future hold for WaxFactory?
We will continue to surprise ourselves and will continue to reinvent our practice as we have up until now. For example, we recently even completed post-production on a film I directed, titled 416 Minutes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was more of that happening down the road. It seems like we will continue to shape-shift in new and unexpected ways as we go along.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Lulu XX, a production of the WaxFactory, plays through Sept. 28 at the Connelly Theater on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
