Gibney: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Heart, New York, NY.
November 2, 2025.
On Sunday November 2nd, Megan Ort and Caitlin Ort produced The Yellow Wallpaper at Gibney: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Heart. Dance and performing have been used as mechanisms to show a narrative rooted within the unification of thoughts and physique.
Within the first scene, we study that Jane, the primary character, is combating a mixture of tension and despair, referred to within the play as “nervous despair.” The three ladies (dancers) on the perimeters and again of the stage transfer slowly as they maintain their head down and step by step transfer their arms in regular sweeping actions throughout the ground after which fall to their sides on the bottom. Their motion mimics that of Jane’s temper, in a state of deep despair.
Jane’s husband John, a doctor, prescribes Jane to a few months of mattress relaxation, but for a lot of the play, John and Jane argue on the state of her psychological well-being. As Jane’s situation worsens and the combating between the couple intensifies, the girl’s involvement turns into a key part throughout the work, dancing with and alongside Jane, performing as a body that intensifies her situation.
This steady dilemma of Jane’s psychological well-being all through a lot of the work demonstrates the severity of psychological well being struggles. And but, it additionally signifies the shear undeniable fact that psychological well being is just not binary. There are occasions when Jane is prospering and different instances when she is struggling deeply. Maybe most sarcastically, Jane truly will get higher when she is round individuals and her thoughts is lively, the precise reverse of what John had prescribed.
Jane’s relationship to the wallpaper evolves drastically all through the work. For a lot of the play, Jane despises the wallpaper and is especially bothered by the truth that it has mould. Jane complains about it to anybody who will pay attention. Her relationship to the wallpaper shifts when she discovers that there’s a sense of thriller to the wallpaper she is able to uncover. Her physique expands with curiosity and pleasure.
As she jumps up and down and runs across the stage, it’s as if a brand new life pressure has entered her being. All she will be able to concentrate on is uncovering what lives beneath the paper. Her degree of enthrallment with the wallpaper creates a distraction from her nervous situation. The three ladies change into the wallpaper as they emerge and shift into their very own state of being. This variation in Jane’s character additionally marks a change within the girl as they start to make use of their voices. We see a transparent shift at this level within the play the place the entire girl, together with Jane, step deeper into their character, deeper into their very own manner of relating towards being on the planet. It’s as if Jane turns into part of the wallpaper because the dancers transfer near her and discover unison phrase work alongside her. John’s confusion in the direction of Jane’s opinion of the wallpaper is clear when at one specific level he asks, “Are you keen on the room despite the wallpaper or maybe due to the wallpaper?” Maybe the wallpaper brings out a brand new manner of present on the planet for Jane. As Jane’s search extends deeper and deeper towards uncovering what’s behind the wallpaper, the dancers transfer with power and readability, commanding the house with their highly effective presence. As demonstrated by the motion and its elevated enthusiasm, we study that there’s deep pleasure for Jane to be on a path rooted in discovery. It’s the questions themselves which are simply as thrilling because the solutions.
Maybe the wallpaper, as it’s peeled off the partitions, is a bodily manifestation of Jane’s emotions. Was her anxiousness and despair attributable to constructed up emotions or feelings that merely wanted to be launched, in the identical manner that the wallpaper wanted to be destroyed? As Jane celebrates the truth that she efficiently destroyed the wallpaper, John collapses to the bottom and the play concludes. We’re left questioning how the connection between Jane and John will proceed onward, or if it’ll even proceed in any respect. The Yellow Wallpaper acts as a pertinent reminder that typically we should let go of one thing so as to develop.
By Rachel Marchica of Dance Informa.
