Beacon performer blurs line with audience
It took a while for Emily Clare Zempel to accept that she swims against the tide. “I faked it for so many years,” she says. “I’m from Wisconsin and know about overly polite people-pleasers, but I just don’t have the juice to pretend anymore.”
Loss and grief are central elements of her edgy, experimental theater work, “Liturgy for Longing,” which opens May 9 at the Beacon Performing Arts Center.
After the death of a close family member, Zempel, an actor and academic, let everything pour out. The result is an interactive, collective experience that blurs the line between performer and audience, limited to 10 per show.
“People can participate to whatever degree they want, even if it’s zero,” she says. “I’m not pulling anyone from the audience onstage. There is no stage and the focus shifts from me to all of us and back again.”
Zempel says she designed the ambitious project to expand form and technique as she addresses taboos. “I’m aiming to pull these things from the shadows so we can shake away our fear, come together and know we’re not alone,” she says.
The core of her work is an exploration of mental health. “Traumatic events made me think about the things I haven’t done,” she says, so she pierced her nose, adopted a cat and sat for her first tattoo.
“Early on in life, I wore a mask and tried to behave in a way that other people wanted,” she says. “Now, I’m learning to trust my weird little brain and let it loose. A lot of my art comes from deep passion, ongoing feelings and a wellspring of introspection, which can ignite an inner fire or be a paralyzing emotion.”
The ritualistic concept consists of moving people through a set performance. Because the room is a white box, Zempel shifts dynamics from one component to the next, with props and collective rituals.
Her soul-stirring prompted a deep dive into poetry, fairy tales, scientific articles, blog posts by psychotherapists and literature in languages beyond English. “Longing is the core of human existence,” she says. “You must face the inevitable loss of everything, yet we long for this to be untrue.”
In addition to raising two sons and working on a doctorate at the University of Birmingham in England about how actors approach emotion in Shakespeare’s plays, Zempel says she only does acting work she feels connected to.
“I know commercials can pay the bills, but I can’t get there,” she says. “I’d much rather make strange and interesting things in a small space in Beacon.”
The Beacon Performing Arts Center is located at 327B Main St. The first three performances have sold out, but seats are available for May 15 to 18. Tickets are $15, $25 or $40 at liturgyforlonging.brownpapertickets.com.
