Image Courtesy of banished? productions/Capital Fringe

Audience participation is a part of every Banished? Productions enterprise, albeit never in a way that will embarrass some poor unwilling schmo in front of dozens of guffawing audience members. For one thing, the audiences are much smaller and the performers guide these four or five person groups from place to place and experience to experience. It makes the performance far more intimate and personalized than anything else (save perhaps, Dishwasher at Your Home).

I Thought the Earth Remembered Me explores the relationship between humanity and nature over the course of five interactive vignettes. They range from extraordinarily personal tales to historic representations. But notably, four of the five performances heavily involve touch, a sense that often goes unused at theater performances. But Carmen Wong will guide your hands onto walls made of moss, David Szanto will cover your hands with the ingredients of sourdough bread, and Ronee Poi will silently encourage you to uncover the message inked at the bottom of a sandbox.

It’s also worth mentioning that all of the five vignettes take place either outdoors or inside the banished? ARTillery studio—and its door remains open to the elements. As such, the participants in this experience not only watch the performances prepared by the members of banished? but by the surrounding Brookland landscape. Hearing birds and feeling breezes as the performers tell personal stories about death or sing operatic odes to the Native American tribes in California adds to the connection that the participants are meant to feel with the Earth. Even the sound of approaching Red Line trains seems appropriate as one performance involves a woman’s dance down a concrete walkway as a television screen tells her story of feeling lost and alone in a city.

This interactive method as produced by banished? is highly effective. Utilizing these unconventional methods opens up the willingness to connect. Imagine for example, being a child again and getting the opportunity to learn about dinosaurs and outer space via levers that you can pull and fans that you can operate at a museum. Now imagine that museum isn’t a tribute to the past but a discovery of a natural world that still exists. These artists understand this world and run this museum. As such, you’ll leave I Thought the Earth Remembered Me with a sense of childlike wonder that you may not have felt since you graduated from the third grade and a peace you may never have felt during waking hours.

I Thought the Earth Remembered Me plays at banished? ARTillery. Remaining performances are:

Friday, July 17 at 8:00 p.m.
Friday, July 17 at 8:20 p.m.
Friday, July 17 at 8:40 p.m.
Friday, July 17 at 9:00 p.m.
Saturday, July 18 at 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, July 18 at 7:20 p.m.
Saturday, July 18 at 7:40 p.m.
Saturday, July 18 at 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, July 18 at 8:20 p.m.
Saturday, July 18 at 8:40 p.m.
Saturday, July 18 at 9:00 p.m.
Sunday, July 19 at 7:00 p.m.
Sunday, July 19 at 7:20 p.m.
Sunday, July 19 at 7:40 p.m.
Sunday, July 19 at 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, July 19 at 8:20 p.m.
Sunday, July 19 at 8:40 p.m.
Sunday, July 19 at 9:00 p.m.

More Capital Fringe reviews here.