Head Under

A personal account of the development of the place-based wilderness theatre aesthetic of The Only Animal, by artistic director, Kendra Fanconi. Based on the far west coast of Canada, in a ferry-isolated community of ten thousand in a town of three hundred, The Only Animal makes immersive, elemental theatre that seeks to connect the community to local treasures, like the Mt Elphinstone forest that is being incrementally logged. This driving effort to preserve the natural world extends to urban wilds in Vancouver, and also across to threatened wilderness across the country. The article contains an account of the 2016 production of Tinkers, based on the Pulitzer-Prize winning novel by Paul Harding, and a new theatrical experiment that will encompass the next cycle, Year of the typewriter.