Time Files When You Talk With An Angel (Review)

As dusk fell I found myself huddled under a blanket, my face lit by laptop glow radiating from the image of Genesis.

In that improvised fort by the window in the living room the last drops of daylight that dripped through the blanket’s knit slowly dimmed as the angel and I spoke of many things, great and small, in a winding conversation.

The angel in question is 444 Tempus Fugit creator Elizabeth Stranathan, whose alias for this venture is Genesis. Kind of. This Zoom-powered one on one is a mask half-on/half-off affair, which starts with one of Stranathan’s poems recited by her as her webcam displays a formless red void before ultimately switching to her face. Genesis sits just off center of the frame in front of the backdrop of a room temptingly filled with curiosities that can’t quite be made out, a cat ear headband perched casually on her head. Effortless occult anime oddness, the pretension scrubbed straight off as Genesis admits to be Elizabeth before asking me if I’d like to have an alias for the evening as well.

So it’s to be make-believe then.

I held up on the idea of an alias for a moment, finding myself unable to conjure one as I wasn’t expecting it. The critical notice in my head making a note for later (here it is) that perhaps being unprepared for that question was unwise. Yet as our back and forth played out that feeling faded fast, and in hindsight (here we are) my desire to just be myself in the context of our play both helped Genesis know how much Elizabeth to bring which in turn let me go some places I didn’t expect. (Have you ever wiped soft tears away while having a video conference under a blanket? Well, now I have too.)

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Both in terms of structure and content 444 Tempus Fugit is fairly simple. Poems bookend the experience, and the central layers consist of a one-word story (an improv class classic), a short writing exercise (which I found myself treating like an automatic writing exercise, just letting the words flow), and a philosophically bent round of 20 Questions (although I didn’t take meticulous count of the number, finding myself lulled into hyper focus at points by the back and forth). Yet like a good meal, sometimes what matters is the skill of the one crafting the experience an not necessarily how ambitious it is.

When one of these things really works for me I find myself floating in a little pocket dimension for a while. This has happened many a time with Stranathan’s frequent collaborator Keight Leighn, with whom she co-created <<Dead.Play>> & bedrumplaii. the later of which took place inside Stranathan’s own bedroom. There’s a gentle intensity to Stranathan, which manifests itself as a sincere curiosity about big ideas and how they play out in people. Just so happens for the hour and change runtime of 444 Tempus Fugit the only person around for that gentle intensity to settle in on is you.

On paper some of what was being asked would have fallen flat, but this isn’t a matter of reading a workbook. Stranathan makes for a great guide to these corners of the mind, and the whole thing takes on the vibe of a late night conversation with a new best friend about the Things That Really Matter™. This type of immersive work traces its toes around the edges transformational experiences without going off-road into the realm of unlicensed therapy. The difference largely resting in both the intent and skill of the performer-creator.

The alias of Genesis, as taken up by Stranathan, is one that is deeply curious about the structure of the world a “RecordKeeper of NostalgicallySparkedVintagePremonitions, Avid CollectorOfIntellectualCommunications” as the show’s blurb tells us. As such, Stranathan is a psychopomp guided by curiosity more than an agenda. She doesn’t purport to know what is good for you or have any answers. Some who play in immersive’s darker waters have been known to style themselves along guruish lines, but the figure of Genesis is a seeker, the answers she’s looking for held within you.

444 Tempus Fugit runs through April 22nd and requires a working Internet connection and webcam for using Zoom. Tickets are $33.33 and 50% of each ticket sale will be donated to Johns Hopkins Covid-19 Research & Response.

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