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Quench Your Thirst
First Light Theater Group marries gothic terror and ecological apocalypse
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The year-old First Light Theater Group has a provocative agenda. It hopes to perform original works that “illuminate the misrepresented and misunderstood.” To prove it, its premier production, Thirst: a spell for Christabel, revamps Samuel Coleridge’s poem Christabel, considered an early example of vampirism. Running through April 12 at the Here Arts Center, Thirst marries gothic terror to a modern ecological apocalypse.
In the retelling, Christabel and her father refuse to leave the dying woods, where she is visited and ravished by a fantastical stranger who forces her to choose between two worlds. The fear is real, as is the suspense. The play, written by Monika Bustamante, hopes to demystify traditional stereotypes of the princess, the evil seductress and the overzealous patriarch. (When it comes to adaptations of Christabel, she’s in good company. It also influenced American writer Edgar Allan Poe, particularly his 1831 poem The Sleeper while country singer Robert Earl Keen recorded “Christabel,” partly inspired by Coleridge’s haunting poem.)
Elizabeth Gross, the company’s executive artistic director, says the genesis of Thirst for First Light began in the search for a two-woman performance piece. The director, Elena Araoz, suggested Christabel, which clicked with Gross. “It was littered with illusions of vampires and lesbians; it was unique and intriguing and showcased two strong female characters.” Since the company’s mission is to create new works, “this adaptation gave us the opportunity to creatively control the story we wanted to tell.”
David Davoli, First Light’s managing director/producer, points to its ecological themes, as well as the characters’ intense longings. “The drought is a metaphor for what is lacking in our lives.” Araoz echoes his thoughts, saying she always believed the poem, properly adapted, “would make a wonderfully grotesque and dark play. For years I have wanted to investigate Coleridge’s stock characters—the sickly king, the motherless girl and the beautiful stranger—through a modern lens.”
The original poem was written in two parts, the first in 1797, the second in 1800. Coleridge, who also wrote the famous poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, planned three additional parts, but never completed them. That unfinished quality lured playwright Bustamante, who says it gave her the freedom to explore Christabel’s character and fate.
“The characters of the play are experiencing a drought that will profoundly affect their way of life,” she notes. “In simplest terms, vampires drain life from their victims. And when our resources—ecological or biological—are dwindling, what do we do? Do we conserve? Do we squander? Do we adapt, or do we surrender? The play means to interact with all of those possibilities.”