Tera Nova Zarra: Press

MICHAEL MCGREGOR - THE OREGONIAN
APIS, or the Taste of Honey - Imago

Pushing the envelope is nothing new for Imago Theatre's Jerry Mouawad. But his latest creation -- a one-hour wordless drama set in a military prison in which characters behave like honeybees -- would seem a dubious stretch even for him. But in some irrational, or maybe sub-rational, way it works.


While dance, mime and even acrobatics are part of the show, "APIS" has the arc and thrust of drama. Drama that moves, that is, with echoes of "West Side Story," Grand Guignol and Charlie Chaplin films. The story can be hard to follow but throughout the hour you feel the restless buzz and instinctive movement of the hive -- apian or human. It is, as Mouawad calls it, like an "opera beyond words."

BEN WATERHOUSE - WILLAMETTE WEEK

The latest work by Jerry Mouawad, one of Imago Theatre’s two co-directors, combines apiculture and incarceration. He writes,

"The insect world is inhabited by drama. It makes the human world look tame in comparison. Upon beginning rehearsals my premise was simple – ‘If humans had motivations of the honey bee what drama would unfold?’ We’re into the third week of rehearsal with a cast of ten. For the first two weeks I kept my cast in the dark. They knew they were prisoners in a cell but they did not know they were bees."