Tifni Twitchell Lynch is a storyteller. Never mind the first incarnation as an actor in her native Los Angeles. When Lynch tells a story, the listener is absorbed into her narrative landscape. At this moment, that landscape is one of endangered animals, golden apples and the elusive firebird.
When these elements of nature and myth move from imagination to the context of San Juan Community Theatre, they form the brightly colored set of Lynch’s adaptation “The Merry Firebird.” Due to open on Friday, the play is Lynch’s unique take on the pan-cultural stories concerning the mythic bird.
Lynch has already earned a name for herself as a creative adaptor for stage. In 2007, the theater staged “The Jazz Fly and the Angel Food Cake,” in which Lynch wove three stories into a narrative collage of jazz and happy endings.
“The Merry Firebird” promises to offer similar delights.
“I always wanted to do the firebird myth, mainly because the stories are so colorful,” Lynch says. Appropriate then, that her first experience of the stories came from a red, shiny book plucked from Powell’s Book Store in Portland, Ore.
Lynch, however, is far from whimsical. She is careful to weave a conscientious note through her children’s theater. “Not moral issues or anything,” she says, “but something the kids can take home with them.” Lynch was keen to transmute the myth’s darker themes of capture into something more proactive that would appeal to her elementary school cast.
Environmentally conscious, Lynch recounts how her adaptation turns the firebird story into an environmental rescue tale.
“I thought, oh, finally the firebird can have some work to do. Normally, the firebird is captured, but I thought I will have her help all the endangered animals.”
The play therefore balances Lynch’s creativity with elements of the classic mythology. The “bad guy” remains the myth’s Vulcan, greedy over his guard of golden apples, but now the classic characters share the landscape with clowns, a dragon and a volcano.
With 43 children from the elementary school participating, not to mention the eight adults and production crew, Lynch’s shows have come a long way from her original children’s theater work.
Although she helped her mother with the L.A.-based children theater group, the Nine O’ Clock Players, it was a move to Melbourne, Australia in 1993 that saw her storytelling blossom. It was there that Lynch officially “let go of the acting career” and focused on her desire to work with children. She evolved toward theater work through stages of puppetry, directing children with puppetry, adapting stories for performance, and then, Lynch smiles, “the costumes started coming.”
The gradual accumulation of skill and vision was finally exercised in full when Lynch moved to the San Juans. Though enrichment programs with Friday Harbor Elementary School, Lynch met and received encouragement from her friend Carolyn Haugen and Merritt Olsen, executive director of the community theater. It was they who pushed Lynch toward the production of a full-blown stage show.
The ambition of this larger scale, however, required a greater number of people. Lynch is eager to highlight the contributions of everyone who makes her pieces possible. Olsen, for example, is consistently referred to as a source of help and inspiration.
Specific to the firebird project was the grand and collaborative success of the stage set. Lynch describes how artist Meredith Essex traveled to the islands for three weeks to coordinate the design of the set. Essex was not interested in a solo show, and instead helped the elementary school children paint the entire set themselves. Given that the school arts program had been cancelled, this artistic effort had an added importance and poignancy.
Although Lynch has no specific story in mind for her next project, she is always enthusiatic about the next story, the next performance. “More of the same,” she smiles. “More of the same.”
At a Glance
— What: “The Merry Firebird,” written and directed by Tifni Twitchell Lynch.
— When: Nov. 20, 7 p.m.; Nov. 21, 2 p.m.
— Where: San Juan Community Theatre.
— Tickets: Adults, $12; students, $6; RUSH, $5. Call 378-3210 or visit www.sjctheatre.org.
