Show reviewed:  Living the Questions
Created and Performed by Rachel Nelson http://www.bardlive.com/
Director:  Kym Longhi
Date saw the show:  July 23, 2008
Place saw the show: Kansas City Fringe Festival,  Kansas City, Missouri

Reviewed by:  Deborah Ground Buckner (Kansas City Correspondent - USA)

"Living the Questions" is one of the most powerful theatrical experiences I have ever witnessed.  Rachel Nelson brings a boundless energy to this one-woman performance, punctuating her excellent storytelling sometimes with violin, sometimes with guitar.  They cease to be instruments and truly become extensions of the artist as she weaves her tales.

"Living the Questions" had its premiere at the 2007 Minnesota Fringe Festival. 

"Welcome to the cabaret of questions!" Nelson exclaims, then leads the audience on a path that seems to wind, but always returns to the same theme.  "We must become ignorant of what we have been taught and become bewildered," as she introduces the program, using the words of the poem "Bewilderment" by Rumi.

Recalling a time when her room was declared to look "like a hoo-rah's nest," launches into a delightful story of a meeting in Memphis with an actual "hoo-rah" showing off his warehouse of "Serious Stuff!"  But "I'm not a hoo-rah, I'm a collector!"  "I'm not a hoo-rah, I'm creative!" 

The tone changes to a tale of being hit by a truck and then overwhelmed by all the news stories of the world and realizing "I have a voice!"  This leads to a segment on giving a "political makeover" to a member of the audience.  With the right coaching on smiling, shaking hands and spouting pat phrases, anyone can be a world leader!

"Don't Ask Me What Happened Over There" gives the story of a war veteran, with a back scene of projected slides of many pairs of soldiers' boots.  We are admonished to "honor our dead-demand the truth."

The story of Julia Butterfly Hill, an ecological activist tree-sitting in a redwood forest reminds that we are all "connected at the root."  The characters of the tree-sitter and the lumberjacks sent to remove her come vividly to life. 

Nelson's ability to create a world of different people and places is amazing, a theatrical experience that truly transports the audience to every place she wants to take them.  With the video images, drums by Linda Melcher and exciting lights and sound by Jason Beason, everything comes to life. 

This is a program that will keep one thinking for quite some time, remembering "You need to live the questions."

Nelson has a busy performance calendar.  After the Kansas City Fringe Festival, she will next appear at the National Storytelling Fringe Festival in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, August 8.