Between the Water and the Air
For its inagural production,
Hunger Warrior Theatre has selected a script by co-founder Andrew
Hungerford. The script started from this photo of a tree on the shores
of Lake St. Clair, near Detroit, Michigan. In the photo, it
is January, and the lake is not yet frozen. The image of an
ice fisherman was placed in front of the photo, prompting the following
dialogue:
What is this man
doing? He is waiting for the lake to freeze.
Why? So that he can go ice fishing.
Why? .....
And that's how it began.
Visit this link for information about the original production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2005.
Fathers. Sons. Ice Fishing. An unseasonably warm winter. A young man waiting for a lake to freeze, struggling to overcome the past in the search for what it means to move on.
"A lot of people have trouble accepting Ice Fishing as a Sport..."
Ice fishing is something of a cultural institution in the northern Midwest of the United States. Part of it comes from the abundance of large lakes, and part of it is because it simply gets so cold in the winters. You have to do something on the lake when the water goes solid and six inches thick. Drawing from personal and family experiences, Andrew has crafted a story that explores what the seemingly absurd practice means to a particular young man and his family.
Really, Between the Water and the Air isn't about ice fishing. It's about what ice fishing is about. Fathers. Sons. Sisters. Brothers. Words that are lost in the wind. And being so cold that you can't help but tell the truth.
"My dad taught us to embrace the cold, to immerse ourselves in the air that hurts when it fills your lungs and reminds you this is what it means to breathe, to live."