PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The American premiere of a queer love story from Scotland opened Friday at Inis Nua Theatre in Philadelphia.
“Meet Me at Dawn” is a new take on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, with two women who are shipwrecked on a beach.
Sam Tower, director of the play, says, in this version, things turn upside down and go pretty sideways.
“And that's exciting to me as a director because there's danger involved,” she said. “There's mystery and there's a little bit of fantasy.”
She says the mystery plays out in a dream-like experience.
“Like a lucid dream – I know I'm dreaming, but I can't quite get out of the dream. I also can't quite control the dream, and I am attempting to, like, rage against the rules of the dream.”
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She added the show is about emotions and relationships that everyone has, but they sometimes hit differently in the LGBTQ community.
“For me, as a director, one of the most important ways to represent queer love on stage is in a human and relatable way,” Tower said.
“We have discussed the concept of disenfranchised grief the way that grieving as a person in a queer relationship or in a queer family can feel different in a world that is not built to support us in the same way, as it is built to support a cis-heteronormative society.”
Hannah Gold, one of the two actors in the play, says she appreciates having a team of queer artists both on stage and behind the scenes.
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“As a queer person, as someone playing a queer person in a relationship, I think really … it's very, very powerful to be in a space where that is present and a foundation that we can build upon,” Gold said.
She added that, behind the fantasy, the story comes down to relatable, human emotions.
“It all hinges upon how much two characters love each other,” she said. “And we really see how anger and sadness and grief and frustration all come out of deep, deep love. And I think that a lot of plays don't go for the jugular in that way.”
“Meet Me at Dawn” runs through March 5. Tickets can be purchased on their website.