Bennington, VT: The next offering from Oldcastle Theatre Company, a professional Equity regional theatre newly installed in its renovated, fully accessible theatre space in downtown Bennington, Vermont is “A Strange Disappearance of Bees” by Elena Hartwell on May 17, running through June 2.
“A Strange Disappearance of Bees” is a beautifully written play that began simply. To hear Hartwell tell it: “I first learned about Colony Collapse Disorder at a time when my own life had started to fragment. In the space of a few years I lost my job, my confidence, my significant other, my house, and my longtime canine companion. I began to think about the parallels between human experiences and all the possible causes of CCD. The disappearance of millions of honeybees has been attributed to pesticides, cell phone interference, mites, an HIV-like virus, and the large–and less nutritious–mono-crops of big agro-businesses.
“It struck me that sometimes people disappear too. Cancers from chemicals, isolation through technology, a disconnect from community. Out of those ideas came this play. As my own life got back on track, a new love, four new animals, a new home, a re-imagined career, the drafts became more hopeful at the end. This play, to me, is art representing life, and life representing art.”
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