Shots in the dark

It’s not hard to be blown away by Maria Falconetti, the star of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 silent film, The Passion of Joan of Arc. Director and video artist Reid Farrington, formerly of the Wooster Group, was so transfixed by her haunting performance that he decided to create a living, moving portrait of her in a projection environment. In The Passion Project, he entrusts this vision to actor-musician Shelley Kay, who not only bears an eerie resemblance to Falconetti, but responds to more than 100 cues per minute as she performs dozens of tasks, including the manipulation of parchment-covered screens with a single-minded devotion worthy of Joan herself. Over lunch in midtown, Farrington and Kay spoke about bringing a film to life.

Reid Farrington: I knew that I wanted a performer involved, but I didn’t know why. People would ask, “What are you doing?” and I would say, “A video project with a live performer.” They would ask, “Why?” and I would say, “I don’t know.” Finally, it became clear that Shelley would be moving and catching these images. I imagined her being edited into the film. Once it starts, it doesn’t stop until the film ends.

Shelley Kay: It’s so dreadful. The [projection] machine is cranking, and I feel it before I get on the stage, which is a ten-by-ten-foot cube. I enter the space and the audience is standing all around it—so I’m walking into the throngs like a boxer. I know what’s going to go down once I cross the line into that cube. It just doesn’t stop. I’m trying to retrieve the images and to put the film back together, all the while being inches away from close-up faces of extreme suffering. It gets to you.

Farrington: We’re not telling viewers how to experience this. You can’t. The thing that’s exciting is that the audience connects to |Shelley as a performer, of seeing her having to move around the space frantically. They’re seeing how hard it is to do this, so they open up their sympathy for her, and then there’s the story of Joan’s life and visions that’s just kind of floating through the room. The audience can choose to be interested in that story, but there is a sympathy for a woman alone with an unbelievable task. And the faith that it’s going to work.

Kay: I really have to believe that I can do this, because it’s very daunting. Joan of Arc, if you watch that film, spends the whole time biting her nails, tears streaming down her face; her brow is all furrowed, and what makes her strong is that she considers every question, every moment, and she keeps going even after she faints and falls down on the ground. Her vulnerability makes her strong. As a performer, I have nerves and a vulnerable human quality: Are my legs going to hold up? Are my arms going to be okay?

It’s just cue by cue and cut by cut—making decisions to get to the next point. It’s kind of like Joan.

Farrington: We have structured moments, but I’m interested in pressing Shelley to do something new. We sculpt it that way.

Kay: I get pulled into the emotion, undoubtedly, but Reid keeps saying, “Work| from the outside in.” We work from a very physical point of view. If I just walked into that space and decided to play it emotionally, I would be a weeping mess.

Farrington: You wouldn’t remember all your cues. Early in the process, I could tell when Shelley would go to that emotional place, because she would forget where she was in the space and wouldn’t remember what her next step was. I would tell her, “No, you can’t do that—you’ve got to stay on the task.” She went through lots of training.

Kay: Hitting tennis balls against the wall. Yoga.

Farrington: We came up with a workout schedule. It was trying to get her physically in shape to be able to maintain 30 minutes. I love to see her sweat. Kay: Sweating is inevitable. I don’t feel winded, but even my hair is drenched. I don’t get that on the spinning machines! I’m really working it.

Farrington: And that’s beautiful to watch! Seeing somebody actively doing something is great. Seeing somebody hide or pretend that they’re not doing something? I can’t ask Shelley to be Joan of Arc because then she’d have to pretend to be Joan of Arc. I don’t want to watch that onstage.

Kay: When I click in it feels like a nightmare. I’m sorry! It does. But if I can connect with the emotion too, it also feels very beautiful, which is quite eerie. It’s a very dark, black-and-white world with occasional glimpses of some color. When I close my eyes, I see a very deep violet. I only get a couple of moments to go there. But that’s her color.

The Passion Project is at P.S. 122 Thu 11–Sept 20.