Sequence. Presentation House Theatre presents A Realwheels production, March 14-24. For more information visit phtheatre.org.
Amy Amantea describes the sudden loss of her eyesight as a “lights on, lights off” situation.
“It was pretty sudden,” the North Vancouver-based actor tells the North Shore News. “I lost it all at once. It was the result of an almost routine surgery that I had, that I had complications with. It was unexpected. I drove myself to work one day and the next day I couldn’t see.”
Amantea has been without sight for the past 11 years. Although she has been “lights off” for some time now, the absence of her eyesight hasn’t dampened her artistic vision one bit. She still yearns for the bright lights of the stage – but it wasn’t always like that.
In Sequence, a Realwheels Theatre production showing at Presentation House Theatre March 14-24, Amantea plays Dr. Guzman, a professor of genetics who believes she has discovered the gene for luck. At the same time, she confronts a student named Mr. Adamson, portrayed by Jake Anthony, who has miraculously defied the laws of probability, luck, and chance by taking a 150-question multiple choice exam only to get every answer wrong.
“The probability of that happening is astronomical, so right away she’s wondering is, ‘Is this guy unlucky? Is there something in his DNA that makes him unlucky?’” Amantea says.
The play, which is directed by Rena Cohen and based on an award-winning script by Arun Lakra, is described as a science thriller that deals with the intersection between math, nature, spirituality, DNA, and order in the universe. To what degree are events preordained or is everything that happens just based on, well, luck?
Amantea might have been thinking about the order of events in the universe after she lost her eyesight more than 10 years ago, though admits she shares more in common with the character of Dr. Guzman than just a propensity for the laws of probability.
“She’s a tenured professor in genetics and she’s losing her eyesight due to retinitis pigmentosa. She’s going to be eventually blind,” Amantea says, joking that she actually lives with greater sight loss than the character she’s portraying.
The play also follows the exploits of characters Theo and Cynthia, played by Byron Noble and Krista Skwarok, respectively.
Theo is described as the Luckiest Man Alive due to his ability to predict the winner of the Super Bowl coin toss, having done so for the past 20 years. He’s confronted by Cynthia, who may be in need of a little luck herself and claims to know the source of his secret.
Like a DNA sequence composed of various strands, Sequence the play is divided into various pieces and scenes that flash back and forth.
“There are scenes that are happening back-to-back of each other, there are two characters doing one scene and then it pauses, and then two characters doing another scene and then it pauses,” Amantea says. “I’ve actually never seen a play formatted like this before. The energy just sort of ping-pongs back and forth from these two different scenes and the audience gets to decide what the relationship is between the characters and the math and the science and the religion.”
Sequence leaves it up to the audience to decide for themselves what to make of the play’s complex yet strangely familiar themes, but the production is clear in its intention to deepen the people’s understanding of the lived experience of disability.
That’s more to do with Realwheels’ mandate than any explicit theme in the play itself.
Two of the four professional actors in Sequence also live with disability, including Amantea, who describes the hardship she faced after the sudden loss of her eyesight.
“I spent a lot of my youth on stage in my teen years and my early adult years … and when I lost my sight I gave up on this dream because I couldn’t figure out how I would be successful at it,” she says.
That dream was reignited after Amantea connected with Realwheels and worked on a project involving a 17-person cast made up of people that all also had a disability. “Once I went through that experience it was like a rebirth for me,” she says.
A passionate science enthusiast, Amantea is expresses excitement about the intellectual themes running through Sequence and the character of Dr. Guzman.
During the play’s run a sign language interpretation showing will be delivered during the March 18 performance in addition to two live-description performances for people who have vision loss March 17 and 24.
Amantea adds that she essentially had to relearn how to do theatre performance again after losing her vision, but the verve is still there.
“I’m almost learning things again for the first time,” she says. “But once you get that experience under your belt I experience the same freeing feeling it feels to be on stage as anybody else does.”
