The Son Also Rises

Sometimes things are just better left unsaid.

For Andrew Dawson, who will perform his new play, “Absence
and Presence,” tonight in the Macgowan Little Theater,
laconicism came in handy in turning his real-life loss into
art.

“People say that when something terrible happens to them,
they are lost for words,” Dawson said. “I figured
I’d go to that place and create the picture instead of using
words.”

In “Absence and Presence,” the English director and
mime artist portrays the relationship between him and his deceased
father.

Dawson’s play, a solo piece and winner of the Total
Theatre Award and Herald Angel Award at the 2005 Edinburgh
International Festival in Scotland, reflects on his feelings of
loss and regret after the passing of someone as meaningful as a
parent.

Despite its serious subject matter, though, the play is not
morose.

“It’s strangely not serious,” Dawson said.
“It’s gentle; it’s beautiful. You have to work at
it and it’ll let you in slowly. There are some laughs in it,
so it lightens the mood.”

Though it took 15 years to find peace with his father’s
death, Dawson was able to create this piece and make it his
own.

“Emotionally, it was very difficult,” Dawson said.
“But I was trying to create something original and different.
It’s like a poem; every time you read it, it gets deeper and
better and better.”

PLAY Wednesday through Friday, 8 p.m. Macgowan
Little Theater, $12 for students

The use of a television monitor, letters from his father and a
wire sculpture of a man aid Dawson in evoking his autobiographical
story.

In addition to the numerous visuals, Jody Talbot, the composer
of the soundtrack for “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy,” created an original piece of music titled
“Absence and Presence” that adds a cinematic touch to
the performance.

These varying forms of expression delve into the intimate issues
involved in dealing with a relationship that has been gained and
lost. The themes of loss and eventual acceptance can be a largely
sensitive topic for those that have experienced a similar
situation.

Though second-year English student David Hoang hasn’t
experienced the death of a parent, his parents’ divorce left
him without a father in his life. Due to this absence, Hoang
recognizes the potential bond he could have forged had things gone
differently.

“The bond and relationship between father and son is
something crucial to me,” Hoang said. “This emotion is
something that no visual could capture. It requires the entire
spectrum of art and its forms to really do it justice, which I
believe Andrew Dawson will achieve.”

The emotional, trying process which Dawson began was completed
with the collaborative input of Jos Houben, a theater teacher in
Paris, and Graham Johnston, a U.K. designer. Together, Houben,
Johnston and Dawson created a 60-minute piece that takes love to a
non-verbal level.

“There was a peace to be made, and in the end, (the piece)
became about my relationship with my father, or rather the missed
relationship,” Dawson said. “I was in my early twenties
when he died, so I was looking for the ultimate gesture of
love.”

That gesture can be seen in the performance’s combination
of movement, imagery and music, which takes the audience to its
ultimate destination. Getting to that place is a big part of
Dawson’s goal for theater.

“It’s a bit like a movie,” Dawson said.
“It can go into the mind of the story, and that’s sort
of what I do. I take you on that journey. It became a universal
gesture of love, and ultimately that’s what you want from
theater.”