Picture Imperfect

When theatergoers walk into UMKC’s Performing Arts Center this weekend, they’ll step through piles and piles of Polaroid snapshots, which Joe Price hopes will feel like “an ocean of people.”

Polaroids, Price notes, are instantaneous flashes that might catch something beautiful, even though most people dismiss them as throwaways.

Price is the director of Polaroid Stories, which is based on playwright Naomi Iizuka’s interviews with homeless teens. Working their stories into a framework that mirrors Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Iizuka lets viewers in on the realities of street life. But more important, she retells myths and legends that circulate among the disenfranchised youth. “You get a glimpse into the truth of their lives, but they create their own mythology,” Price says. “They have their own struggles to overcome, and they have their own experiences with venturing into underworlds.”

In the Polaroid Stories‘ rendition of Echo and Narcissus, Narcissus is a rave boy who hustles men, shamelessly using anyone who might be able to put him up for a night. Echo is Narcissus’ sidekick, who follows him around and hangs on his every word, then calls herself Nothing Girl when she realizes how empty these pursuits turn out to be.

Most of the performers come from UMKC’s Master of Fine Arts program. Because it is uncommon for master’s candidates to have experienced life on the street, getting the performers to grasp what their characters think and feel has been Price’s biggest challenge. “It’s tough,” he admits. “I’m not going to encourage them to go out and smoke crack. I’m not big on sending them out to sleep on the street for a night, and I don’t think that’s necessary. We all have imaginations.”

Judging by the level of danger that actors experience on the set itself, which makes use of chain-link and corrugated metal, Polaroid Stories has been sharpening its edges. We look forward to seeing some scars.