On Stage: Recent

Nowhere But Up

Written & Performed by Jenny Magnus
March 29 – April 26, 2009

A new work by Jenny Magnus, about the end of things, or someone. What is it that can be portrayed, when there is ever less to portray? A lyrical meditation on mortality. Also playing: Richard Henzel as Lord Buckley, in his pre-beat, jazz age dub on the great performer.

"She is going," Jenny Magnus says of the dying heroine of her lyrical new solo piece, "and she cannot be portrayed." Of course, this doesn't stop Magnus from trying—three times, in fact, over the course of the show's 25 minutes. Using original songs and elliptical monologues, Magnus depicts the woman cataloging every item in her hospital room, putting up a defiant front, slipping into bitterness. We also see Magnus—who deliberately keeps the woman's identity unclear (is she a friend? Magnus's mother?)—struggling to capture her subject's individuality without telling all of her secrets. What results is a deeply moving, painfully personal exploration of the limits and consolations of art in the face of mortality.—Chicago Reader

Jenny performs a song in Nowhere But Up