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[0:00] ♪ Musical number: "When Lightning Strikes" — performed by Unknown artist ♪

[0:26] Jeryl Brunner: Hi, this is Jeryl Brunner, and you're listening to When Lightning Strikes, when we talk about the tingly mic drop moments that led you to becoming an artist.

[0:39] Gwendolyn Warnock: Gwendolyn Warnock and Kirjan Waage both wrote and directed The Immortal Jellyfish Girl.

[0:48] Kirjan Waage: Currently playing at 59E59 Theaters.

[0:48] Gwendolyn Warnock: This dazzling out-of-the-box show is presented by Wakka Wakka and Nordland Visual Theatre.

[1:02] Kirjan Waage: Gwendolyn and I are part of Wakka Wakka Productions, a non-profit visual theater company based in New York City and Oslo.

[1:14] Gwendolyn Warnock: Our mission is to stretch the limits of the imagination and create daring and unpredictable theater.

[1:22] Kirjan Waage: You will hear some background noise.

[1:32] Jeryl Brunner: Thank you so much for coming on.

[1:39] Gwendolyn Warnock: It's it says so many things to me.

[1:42] Kirjan Waage: Here it is, it's the year 2555.

[1:46] Gwendolyn Warnock: We're in this post-apocalyptic earth with mass extinction and dead zones, and the earth has been destroyed by this ecological disaster, and humans have evolved to groups at war.

[2:05] Kirjan Waage: And there's so much we're so invested in the characters we meet.

[2:13] Jeryl Brunner: Can you talk about when you first decided to tackle the story?

[2:20] Gwendolyn Warnock: You know, what was the genesis of it?

[2:25] Kirjan Waage: Well, the show is actually part of a trilogy, and so little known that it's one of three pieces.

[2:31] Gwendolyn Warnock: But the first piece is called Animal Riot, and Animal Riot talks about one of the characters that's in The Immortal Jellyfish Girl, and that's Fox, who's the narrator.

[2:41] Kirjan Waage: Yes.

[2:42] Gwendolyn Warnock: And in our first show, which feels a little bit like a kind of punk rock attempt at making an organization or founding an organization that's trying to address the issues of helplessness in the face of feeling helpless in the face of animal extinction and man's sort of role in destroying elements of the planet that we need to survive or that we want to have in the future with us, and he's sort of grappling with that and trying to be proactive, be an activist.

[3:15] Kirjan Waage: He's trying to be an activist, he's trying to find a way where he can make a difference or start something, start a movement, which is not an easy thing to do, of course.

[3:23] Gwendolyn Warnock: We all know that.

[3:24] Kirjan Waage: Yes.

[3:25] Gwendolyn Warnock: So that's sort of the foundation of the trilogy, and that takes place in the present time, and then the second part of the trilogy, which is the one that's playing at 59 East 59, the Fox is starting to imagine a future, and the future that he imagines is a space that humans don't exist in anymore.

[3:45] Kirjan Waage: So that's really where the point takes this place of like what happens when we're gone, you know, and humans have evolved into, like you said, to other species, and the world is struggling to survive.

[3:56] Gwendolyn Warnock: And animals are fighting against it.

[4:00] Kirjan Waage: And in this scenario, there's sort of animals versus technology or versus AI, is where the two humans have gone into those extremes, either more into the roots of animal genetic manipulation or becoming more technologically advanced.

[4:17] Gwendolyn Warnock: So our again, the situation for us was this idea of trying to write a future that is a positive one, and that's what he struggles with through the whole show, like trying to write a positive future, but constantly finding that the future is difficult to change, the future is difficult to manipulate, like each road leads you to a place that isn't necessarily where you want to be.

[4:39] Kirjan Waage: And that sort of was the basis for it of like how do we make future?

[4:45] Gwendolyn Warnock: How do we tell a story that we think is funny?

[4:47] Kirjan Waage: And also it deals with the underlying issues of feeling sometimes hopeless and still trying to find the hope of what is the future, yeah.

[4:58] Gwendolyn Warnock: Yeah for us.

[4:59] Kirjan Waage: Where's it gonna be?

[5:02] Gwendolyn Warnock: Because I felt so much compassion for Bug, the robot boy, and Aurelia, you know, the immortal jellyfish girl, and their connection, and here they're supposed to be warring, and yet they want to save, you know, what's humanity, you know, in this very beautiful way.

[5:31] Kirjan Waage: And you think, oh, everything's against them, you know, and yet here they are, you know, in this kind of dare I say, like a David and Goliath kind of story on some level.

[5:47] Gwendolyn Warnock: That's it.

[5:48] Kirjan Waage: It's a classic.

[5:50] Gwendolyn Warnock: Yeah.

[5:51] Kirjan Waage: Yeah.

[5:52] Gwendolyn Warnock: Well, it's also a kind of Romeo and Juliet in that way that you understand that the youth doesn't see all the other issues that are there, they only see the things that seem to be honest and truthful, which is, you know, love and also kindness sometimes sharing those kind of things that it comes a little bit easier for children.

[6:12] Kirjan Waage: Bug and Aurelia see, like why do we have to deal with all these other problems?

[6:16] Gwendolyn Warnock: These aren't our problems.

[6:17] Kirjan Waage: What you guys are fighting about is not what we're fighting about, right?

[6:21] Gwendolyn Warnock: We're fighting we want something else.

[6:23] Kirjan Waage: But of course they have they're powerless in the face of all these other, like you said, Goliath problems that are involved over time.

[6:33] Gwendolyn Warnock: Yeah, or feel powerless.

[6:34] Kirjan Waage: They're trying to change, you know.

[6:34] Gwendolyn Warnock: It's not easy?

[6:40] Kirjan Waage: It's not easy.

[6:40] Jeryl Brunner: Can you talk about that? You're actually in the show, right?

[6:46] Kirjan Waage: I mean, in addition to co-writing and co-directing it with Gwendolyn, can you talk about who you play?

[6:55] Kirjan Waage: I'm the narrator, yeah, the Fox.

[6:59] Gwendolyn Warnock: I love the Fox.

[7:00] Kirjan Waage: So it's a human in a fox costume.

[7:04] Gwendolyn Warnock: Yes.

[7:05] Kirjan Waage: That's kind of trapped and lost in the story or in the narration is lost in narration.

[7:15] Gwendolyn Warnock: Very much in this performance this puppet show.

[7:20] Kirjan Waage: So it's a self-aware puppet show.

[7:26] Gwendolyn Warnock: But it has life of its own in the puppet show and it doesn't really go the way the narrator wants it to go.

[7:38] Kirjan Waage: Just like the future doesn't always happen the way we want it to happen.

[7:44] Gwendolyn Warnock: We can't really control it.

[7:48] Kirjan Waage: And I love that you're, I mean that you're constantly talking to us, you're breaking the fourth wall, you're bringing us in.

[7:56] Gwendolyn Warnock: Yes, I think it's important to do with for us it's important to use it to do things in the theater that you really can't do anywhere else.

[8:06] Kirjan Waage: Yeah, which is the direct connection that you can have with an audience.

[8:11] Gwendolyn Warnock: You can because we're there at the same time.

[8:14] Kirjan Waage: I love the details like the lobster phone and how you stretch me as an audience member.

[8:21] Gwendolyn Warnock: Can you talk about some of the details that were important for you, you know, in terms of the set, in terms of the costumes, you know, the turtle costume, you know, why those were important?

[8:37] Kirjan Waage: Well, you know, we've been developing this show for on and off all through the pandemic, really.

[8:46] Gwendolyn Warnock: And then there are just elements that we wanted to include.

[8:51] Kirjan Waage: Well, we've kind of tried to put in as much as possible within the design frame of the show, can you call it?

[8:56] Gwendolyn Warnock: So the lobster phone is we've lifted from Salvador Dali, you know, his lobster phones.

[9:10] Kirjan Waage: Yes, I love that.

[9:12] Gwendolyn Warnock: So we made our version of that.

[9:15] Kirjan Waage: It's in a red one, and then a lot of the other elements we put in to create this kind of ridiculous universe that we want to make around it.

[9:30] Gwendolyn Warnock: Which is also surreal, which is absurd at times.

[9:36] Kirjan Waage: So we put them in.

[9:39] Gwendolyn Warnock: Yes, yes.

[9:42] Kirjan Waage: And also it's I think it's a test of it too, to that.

[9:45] Gwendolyn Warnock: I mean, people when they see the piece do definitely have fun while they're watching it, you know.

[9:49] Kirjan Waage: I think there is a lot of surprises and a lot of joy in meeting the characters, the turtle that you're saying, and seeing his costume and his presence on stage and the lobster phone is a surprise.

[9:59] Gwendolyn Warnock: So that's it, but that's our moments of pleasure too that you're taking in this universe.

[10:04] Kirjan Waage: Yeah, we knew we wanted to have a shell for the turtle, and to have a head that could go in it, retract into the shell.

[10:14] Gwendolyn Warnock: Yes, but then the neck got longer and longer.

[10:17] Kirjan Waage: So it started out with quite a short neck, and then the head got longer.

[10:25] Gwendolyn Warnock: And then the villain who's only, I mean, I don't even want to ruin it too much for people because they need to see it, but just that she's this goddess machine who's the sort of the grand poobah of it all, right?

[10:41] Kirjan Waage: Who's running things his own only has certain body parts, and it's just ingenious, you know, the way you create this universe, and here they are puppets, and um like it feels like animatronics in a way, and you're just so invested in all the characters.

[11:01] Jeryl Brunner: What was it like to um to co-write and co-direct the piece together?

[11:12] Kirjan Waage: Uh well, Gwendolyn and I work very closely, and we have on all the pieces that we've made up to this point.

[11:17] Kirjan Waage: We're we're married, yes.

[11:25] Kirjan Waage: So that's uh that's definitely take the job home with us so we're working all the time.

[11:31] Kirjan Waage: But um when we started working on it, uh uh Gwen was the uh she was playing the jellyfish girl.

[11:40] Kirjan Waage: So uh so I will be sitting outside a lot more, but then uh as she stepped up whoops, yeah, and uh we we cast someone else to play the jellyfish girl than uh Gwen was doing uh most of the direction.

[12:02] Jeryl Brunner: I see.

[12:03] Kirjan Waage: I see and we've been writing we've been writing with the that uh been writing it with uh help from the ensemble as well, and like workshopping it uh step by step.

[12:17] Kirjan Waage: So it's had the we've had several versions of a script that we put through and and it changes a lot because with puppetry as well, you're having people that are uh you have to move the puppets through space and they have to be able to accomplish the things you want them to be able to do.

[12:31] Kirjan Waage: Sometimes uh it's harder than you think.

[12:35] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah.

[12:36] Kirjan Waage: So you're constantly making changes to adapt for that as well.

[12:39] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah.

[12:39] Kirjan Waage: Oh, they're so human-like, all these puppets and um imbued with so much emotions, you know, you forget there, and there's such a grace with the jellyfish girl, you know, with her wild hair and the way she moves in space, it's really beautiful versus the other characters, you know how they move.

[13:00] Jeryl Brunner: There's a whole it seems like there's a whole language there with your puppets, you know, with each one.

[13:07] Kirjan Waage: Yeah.

[13:08] Jeryl Brunner: What about the yay and yang of you both? Forgive me, I didn't know you were married.

[13:13] Jeryl Brunner: Nowhere does it say that you're married. I love that, but I didn't know that.

[13:17] Jeryl Brunner: Um is there a yin yang to you? Do you each of you bring a separate your kind of sensibility to your collaboration?

[13:28] Gwendolyn Warnock: For sure, for sure.

[13:30] Gwendolyn Warnock: I mean what what do you each bring?

[13:35] Gwendolyn Warnock: Well, uh, I think that we're both very creative people that like to play in this world of uh of science fiction and magic. That's the reason why we're both attracted to puppetry and visual theater.

[13:45] Gwendolyn Warnock: Um and I would say that uh there's a side that's a little more serious that I take, and there's a side that's a little bit more ridiculous that Kirjan takes.

[13:52] Gwendolyn Warnock: And so the combination tends to make uh a show that plays on both levels.

[13:59] Gwendolyn Warnock: So that's the that's the good uh part. I mean Kirjan also is making the puppets, so he's building and uh creating uh the puppets that you see, uh which is a huge proposition into the storytelling.

[14:12] Jeryl Brunner: Oh, that's enormous, yeah.

[14:14] Jeryl Brunner: Can you each talk about your lightning strikes moment when you each knew you had to be an artist that this was your path?

[14:23] Gwendolyn Warnock: Sure. Uh mine mine was um uh it's it happened very young and uh my mother always said that I um it was a very uh serious child. It's just that I was very precocious but very serious.

[14:35] Gwendolyn Warnock: Like it didn't seem like I was always having as much fun as she wanted me to have and then uh I started doing theater and that's when I started I and I remember this as a child too actually.

[14:46] Gwendolyn Warnock: It's not that I didn't have fun. I had a lot of fun but I experienced a kind of joy um when it came to uh the creativity of performance and making performances uh that I haven't been able to let go of so that was for me like this is it and I knew from the time I was probably actually I mean I think I was in my first show when I was in kindergarten but uh after that like I started doing a lot more when I was in like eight nine it just uh so you grew up in Ohio do you remember one of the first shows that you did well the first uh yeah I mean the first show that I did in kindergarten was just that uh the teacher chose me to be the owl when everybody else was birds that was the kindergarten show so the owl was the lead so I got to be the owl and uh and I was the one that was awake at night when everyone else was sleeping and I just remember uh really the joy of uh performing it's it's really like uh a space of joyfulness that uh if you feel it I mean I don't want to say it's like a drug or something but it is something that you the when you have that bug yes when the lightning strikes were you you know yes it stays and so you just constantly want to be in that space.

[15:55] Gwendolyn Warnock: You want to be performing you and and creating all those things bring uh bring me quite much joy even though it's hard work even though it's stressful all those other things that uh that uh make it difficult the joy still persists yes and what about you?

[15:55] Kirjan Waage: One of my uh I don't know if you know uh you're from Norway yes I am okay and my uh uh my parents are artists okay so when I was uh child I was put on stage by my father uh the director okay and uh and I did not like it at all oh so well lightning did not strike me uh uh until later uh then you think uh when I uh while I was studying in um before I decided to go to theater school when I was studying in Italy and um uh right before going on stage I think I guess that's when lightning struck so uh yeah what what inspired you you said you didn't like it at first so what inspired you to uh to to pursue it to go um to continue uh because um uh I got uh I caught the bug uh okay and um how did you do you mind sharing how both of you met when you first met and became collaborators?

[17:34] Gwendolyn Warnock: Theatre school in Paris uh it was very romantic okay were you doing a a show together or work it in class or what were the we're in school together?

[17:49] Kirjan Waage: Uh-huh.

[17:50] Kirjan Waage: Yes.

[17:51] Kirjan Waage: And we uh we uh started working together uh in the Shakespeare play, actually after school.

[18:00] Gwendolyn Warnock: Actually Romeo and Juliet.

[18:01] Kirjan Waage: Romeo and Juliet.

[18:03] Kirjan Waage: Uh we did uh she played Juliet, but I I was not Romeo.

[18:08] Jeryl Brunner: Oh, who were you?

[18:10] Kirjan Waage: Who did you play?

[18:12] Kirjan Waage: Uh the Friar.

[18:13] Jeryl Brunner: Uh oh.

[18:16] Kirjan Waage: Friday Lawrence.

[18:19] Jeryl Brunner: And is it too amaz what can you say what what you adore about each other or what you adore about working together and collaborating.

[18:31] Gwendolyn Warnock: We share the same intensity.

[18:34] Gwendolyn Warnock: Uh but also I don't think you can work with everyone.

[18:38] Gwendolyn Warnock: And I think uh especially and especially those a lot of people who can't work with their partner.

[18:42] Gwendolyn Warnock: So it definitely takes a certain um ability to listen and uh understand one another and have similar goals, like the intensity, like you said, how to you have to enjoy what each other bring to the table, you know.

[18:55] Gwendolyn Warnock: It's there is uh we do complement each other and that that makes working together fun.

[19:02] Kirjan Waage: If it wasn't fun, we wouldn't be able to do it, you know.

[19:05] Kirjan Waage: So I think uh uh I think that that's what it is.

[19:09] Kirjan Waage: There's a little bit of magic there with that we're constantly exploring and you know, look picking a new project to work on, it's very fun to brainstorm together and you know decide what it is that uh that we want where we want to go next, you know, what's the next journey going to be?

[19:24] Gwendolyn Warnock: Because it really is a long journey.

[19:25] Gwendolyn Warnock: It's a couple of years of something that we're working on quite intensely.

[19:28] Kirjan Waage: Yeah, and both in fine yeah at work and at home you know it takes over to a certain extent or what would you like people to take away from the show and you know I think it's hard to answer that when you've made the work yourself I think it's a lot easier as somebody who comes to see it to talk about that but um but uh what I'm excited about is the the that everyone is so surprised when they see the show you know people are are are really loving the show and that for me is exciting because it is puppetry it is for an adult audience it is a little bit like you say absurd and there's um silliness that's involved it does deal with themes that are important but also sometimes dark uh and there is a love story there so we've tried to bring a lot of things together and uh and at the end of the show everyone walks out like wow so uh I think that it's it's a show to be seen for because of all those different elements that are brought together into one into one piece.

[20:27] Jeryl Brunner: Yes it really takes you on the journey well thank you so much for coming on it's lovely to talk to you both and I really do love the show.

[20:27] Gwendolyn Warnock: Thank you so much it still happens every day when lightning strike is the moment you know the theme song was written by Tom McGovern.

[20:50] Jeryl Brunner: This episode was edited by Kyle Moore.

[20:53] Jeryl Brunner: This episode was produced by Anna Strout.