The costuming and set design of "Fiber" established an air of nostalgia, with antique furniture from the College's scenic archives ringing the performance space and performers clothed in simple dress that evoked a sense of "period" without defining one. Rosenberg suggested an intentional "timelessness" with her eclectic choice of antiques, from warped tables to a Benjamin Franklin step chair, and costumes dating "from the 1890s to this spring's season at H&M." The tight palette, sticking close to the aged wood of the furniture and the milky white of the performers' dresses, recalled the sentimental charm of a sepia photograph.
The action of the play felt equally frozen in time, as characters went unhurriedly about their weaving and knitting without a word of dialogue over the course of the production. Overwhelming silence deadened any sense of momentum but heightened awareness of every clacking needle, creaking chair and humming melody passed between characters.
The calm, contemplative mood of the piece required and rewarded a Zen-like focus from the audience, revealing itself patiently, by fractional additions, like a developing tapestry.
Generational interaction, rendered by the careful casting and reserved performances of Tierra Allen '09, Anna Reid '10 and Heather Teige '07, formed the work's focal drama. The alternating intimacy and distance of mother, child and grandchild played out through knitting lessons, common song and sparse moments of affection.
But the clearest manifestation of this common thread was, literally, a massive thread-like the knitting yarn magnified 100 times-teeming in a heap at the center of the stage, tying together the antiques in a culminating tangle, and reaching out with an umbilical embrace to the last lonely character in the work's closing moment.
As if picking up where the first work left off, "Ceci n'est pas la lune" began as the last traces of a loved one had gone cold-"A fairy tale for after the happy ending," according to one teaser. The piece opened with its main character emerging from sleep, yet never entirely left her dream world, where two playful sprites raided her glowing dresser of wonders.
Considering the challenges of a wordless show about someone not there, Jaster plumbed the depths of her theatrical vocabulary to articulate an absence-from empty clothes to lonely parallels with the impish pair and, of course, regular visits from the simple yet stunning ghost.
Whether filling the puppet with affection or grasping for a missing embrace, the physical mastery of all three performers was the key to a captivating show from beginning to end. Jaster came to the lead role with unmistakable poise and presence, having spent last year at the Lecoq physical theater conservatory in Paris and the 15 years prior training formally in dance, while learning informally from her father, a professional mime.
Just as impressive, given what was asked of them, were her two companions, William Cranch '08 and Milena Dabova '07, who came from two poles of theater experience but integrated seamlessly onstage. Though Cranch had rarely ventured beyond straight acting roles and Dabova came to the work chiefly as a dancer, the two met comfortably in the realm of physical theater, while still playing to their strengths.
Jaster's own breadth of experience helped to bridge the worlds of dance and acting in directing her fellow performers, as in imagining the piece to begin with. "I really had to use both vocabularies," she noted, "explaining things in terms of not just movement but also intentions."
The resulting synthesis was a graceful yet gripping reflection on life after loss-what works us into grief and what pulls us out.