Oasis

“…part of the fun of ‘Oasis,’ and part of what makes it work in its setting, is that it’s like a heightened form of people-watching. In the wordlessness of its small dramas and romances, we get to fill in the blanks.”

–The New York Times

Commissioned as part of Arts Brookfield’s 30th anniversary, Oasis was a series of lunchtime performances created for the Winter Garden of Brookfield Place, a light-filled glass building with majestic palm trees and water views of the marina outside. Drawing on the very nature of the Winter Garden as a tropical retreat in the middle of bustling lower Manhattan, an “oasis inside of an oasis” emerged in the form of a small tropical island that appeared to have grown out of the marble staircase overnight.

Turning back the clock to the 1980s when the building first opened, each daily episode depicts a lunch break for four overworked hopefuls. A benevolent muse watches as each character navigates the stress and pressures of the daily grind. When they stumble unexpectedly onto her magical mirage, she offers them rose-colored glasses that run counter to the culture of the corporate world– until the refuge they have discovered becomes a shiny product itself.

Full description and credits: thirdrailprojects.com