The Imaginists offer up pure theatrical sorcery

“So, who are you related to?” a fellow audience member playfully whispered to me in the dark. The Imaginists had just guided us across a dazzling art installation in Santa Rosa’s SOFA district. This was “nightlight,” The Imaginists’ immersive declaration against light pollution, and we were on a tour through The Underworld to find the purest form of darkness. Set designers Gary B. Lindsay and Joshua Thwaites masterminded a stunning walk-through performance that had taken us to a beeping booping control room called Area 12, and an elevator operated by a white rabbit, and caverns where giant grubs scuttled by. We spoke with snow owl puppets and arctic foxes. Giggling mushroom people lit in otherworldly green had peered down at us from the tops of stalagmites and asked if we could see in the dark.

“Can you see in the dark? You will.”

We ended up in a cave of draped fabric with two viney root-things and gentle echoes of dripping water by sound designer Stephen K. Patterson. I tried to make polite hushed theater talk with my new friend.

No, I wasn’t related to anybody in the cast, I was with my partner – who incidentally had downed too many beers at Spinster Sisters across the street and wouldn’t quit poking me, when all of a sudden, the root-things stood up and began throat-singing like Tibetan monks. Actors in costume. Of course. The reason for the poking. (1. Even drunk, my partner notices everything. 2. Duh, Jackie.) At the end of a lightless tunnel a Fox Priestess in a white gown (the spellbinding Yuxdi Farias) seemingly floated toward us in a profoundly pure, ephemeral moment of live art that will never ever happen in the same way ever again, the kind of moment that fills you with relief and gratitude because you were there, you didn’t miss it.

And my heart stopped. I saw in the dark. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.

Straight up: The Imaginists are sorcerers. I cannot imagine the time, the care and the genius that it must have taken to create nightlight.

Sonoma County, we are so lucky. David Cromer just did a sold-out Off-Broadway “Uncle Vanya” in the living room of somebody’s loft. “Sleep No More” has the audience wearing plague doctor masks chasing Macbeth around a hotel in Chelsea. If radical staging excites you – if experiencing theater in new ways lights up your dark – just know that you can get that here. “nightlight” is closed now, but the next time The Imaginists do something -- the next time the Imaginists do ANYTHING -- you should definitely go.

Coming Soon: The Imaginists teach the theater children well with “Dreamletting,” an original one act created with ArtQuest Theater Level 3. Jan. 25 – 26 at 7 p.m. Santa Rosa High School Black Box.

Learn more about The Imaginists: https://theimaginists.org/

Reach Jackie Blevins: jackieblevins24601@gmail.com