“It was so very easy while standing in the middle to think about the others. ”

Artist Statement from Linda Mussmann, 1987:

“I Imagine the Civil War entering the lives of rural people in America (as in anywhere else in the world, in any war) like a tornado that comes all of a sudden, out of nowhere, interrupting their isolated daily routine. In the calm flatness, inland, the Midwestern person/state, with a firm sense of center, suddenly becomes vulnerable to the wind. I imagine a landscape in which the factors of safety can unexpectedly flip to moments of danger.”

 “I find analogies fascinating. However I am not interested in the usual treatment of analogies: focusing on relating two things to each other. I am interested in the straight-forward juxtaposition of the two sides of the analogy. That is, I take out the conjunctive like from “the war like a tornado” and put “war” and “tornado” side by side. (I make metaphors out of similes, in other words.)

I placed a few more themes next to these two: the concept of theatrical presentation (theatre about itself), the idea of seeing and being seen, etc. to make things more thought provoking and entertaining.

I also make use of the well-known Wizard of Oz/Dorothy story to evoke another analogy with Dorothy’s spinning by way of a tornado into another kind of land.”

Set design:

“Zig-zag patterned fence-like walls divide the stage in two, creating a front and back… The horizontal boards are slatted, allowing enough space between the boards to enable the audience see through the fence. The inspiration comes from rural America, where fences cut the flat landscape and define the boundaries and sections.

The purpose of this fence, placed directly in the middle of the stage with six openings for exits and entrances, is to create a third spatial quality which is neither stage nor backstage, to obtain an inside-outside contrast.”