A few years back, Barbie Wu threw herself into the role of a wolf. Now, she’s a great ape. Make that a GREAT great ape.
In Portland Playhouse’s 2019 production of “The Wolves,” the actor portrayed the strong team captain trying to hold her high school soccer squad together.
For the simian–centered drama “Sapience,” currently running in the lobby of Artists Repertory Theatre’s temporary performance space on Southwest Morrison Street, Wu anthropomorphically astonishes, transforming into the curious, rebellious, clever and endearing orangutan “Wookie.“
Gifted with magical communicative abilities, Wookie builds a special bond with AJ (Zachary Williams) who is neurodiverse, nonverbal, and the nephew of Elsa, (Cristi Miles) a primatologist who is hiding her own neurological differences.
Amazingly, Woo creates Wookie without special makeup, prosthetics or movie-worthy CGI. Andy Serkis, the actor whose motions were captured for the recently reimagined “Planet of the Apes” franchise, would surely be proud.
“This is just me on stage with costumes that suggest I’m an orangutan,” Wu said in an interview before the show’s premiere, and invoking the Malay pronunciation of the Asian ape with whom we share 97%, of the same DNA. “If you want to say it like Sir David Attenborough,” she said, “orran-huta” – that’s a rolled r, soft hu-tan, no hard g.
Judging by the audience’s standing ovation opening night, Wu and the “Sapience” team have plenty of reason to triumphantly thump their chests.
Artists Repertory Theatre presents “Sapience,” through March 23 in Portland with Cristi Miles and Tricia Castañeda-Guevara.Philip J Hatton/Courtesy of Artists Repertory Theatre
Artists Repertory Theatre presents “Sapience,” through March 23 in Portland with Zachary Williams and Barbie Wu.Philip J Hatton/Courtesy of Artists Repertory Theatre
Who’s who
DEI is in the DNA of “Sapience.” Playwright Diana Burbano, a Colombian immigrant who is on the neurodivergent spectrum, specifically wrote characters reflecting her experiences. Miles and Tricia Castañeda-Guevara (Miri) are persuasive as bantering, squabbling Latinx cousins bound by AJ.
Williams, enrolled in Portland’s PHAME performing academy for adults with developmental disabilities, confidently fills AJ’s shoes, the laces of which AJ gives to Wookie for her art, one of several tender moments of communion.
John San Nicolas swings easily into the role of Jason, a gregarious, overly chatty zoo administrator.
The show
Burbano employs a vignette style for “Sapience,” which jumbles storylines a bit. But the clashing and complementing layers of communication – between neurotypical and neurodivergent, English and Spanish, human and 97% human – are handled superbly. What’s more, Burbano doesn’t artificially ennoble Wookie in service of a beast-savior trope.
Why this role
“I have family members and loved ones who are on the autism spectrum and I’m very fascinated by the idea of the divergence, and what it means to be neurotypical,” Wu said. “I think so much of the time people put on these different masks or identities. It’s just some of us are a little bit more successful and some of us have the tools.”
Inhabiting Wookie also fulfills a childhood dream: communicating with animals. It’s a superpower Wu said was inspired by groundbreaking conservationists and primatologists Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall.
“If we could just understand them more, then we could do a better job of taking care of them or advocating for them,” Wu said.
Acting challenge or ape-ortunity?
It’s a daunting task for any actor to perform an animal character live on stage without special costuming or other tools. In exploring Wookie, the actor led with her heart.
“I think all living things are so similar in so many ways,” Wu said. “We all have needs. We all have emotions, though emotions might come through differently. I’m very lucky to get to portray an ape that has so many similarities to us.”
Wu commits to the movements of an orangutan with convincing precision. You might notice that her costuming is slightly personalized: The actor is 6½ months pregnant.
“It’s a little tricky trying to navigate the movements of a baby and an orang at the same time” she said, adding that she doesn’t want her pregnancy to be the focal point of the show. She noted that when they’re born, baby orangs have a “little belly.”
“I happen to play a great ape that looks a little pregnant,” Wu said.
Theater makers in the mist
For “anything orangutan related,” Wu turned to her friend Ylfa Muindi, a habitat gardener and educator who’s worked at multiple zoos. “Ylfa is my pathway to anything related to the natural world. I would not have been able to portray Wookie without her support or wisdom.”
To get a feel for how Wookie might act and interact on stage, the cast and creative team made field trips to the Oregon Zoo and the Oregon National Primate Research Center in Beaverton. The sassy macaques at the primate research center did not like eye contact, recalled Wu. So behaviorists would “try to make themselves very small and not stare at them,” while making physical alterations to their bodies to blend in.
At the Oregon Zoo, theatermakers were able to speak with the zookeeper about the family of orangutans – mom Kitra, dad Bob and their 2-year-old daughter Jolene.
Bob mugged at the glass and Jolene somersaulted for their human audience. Wu learned how to mimic an orangutan vocalization called a “kiss squeak.” It sounds like an exaggerated smooching noise, but with completely opposite intent.
“It’s a sound showing that they’re frustrated and not happy,” said Wu. “And that’s a sound that I don’t know I would’ve associated with discontent.”
Artists Repertory Theatre presents “Sapience,” through March 23 in Portland with Cristi Miles and Barbie Wu.Philip J Hatton/Courtesy of Artists Repertory Theatre
What’s the big idea?
In the quest to connect, language is both the beautiful bridge and frustrating barrier.
“When I first came to the states, I wanted to communicate with people on the level of my mother tongue in Mandarin,” Wu recalled of her 2003 journey from Taiwan to the U.S. “But I wasn’t able to because I didn’t have all the words. Wookie has a line specifically where she says, ‘You only understand one of my words, but I have so much to say.’ ”
It occurred to Wu how often we gauge people’s intelligence based on their language proficiency, creating countless missed opportunities to get to know someone “if that’s the only rubric where you can connect with this individual.”
And what if the individual is nonverbal like AJ?
“Are they just speaking a language that we haven’t learned yet?” she wondered.
Continues through March 23; Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 S.W. Morrison St.; artistsrep.org.
— Lee Williams, for The Oregonian/OregonLive
