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Multidisciplinary artist Lauren Ferebee created this theatrical film in response to Psalm 107:23-32.

Psalms 107:23-32

Wonders of the Deep

Lauren Ferebee

Credits:

Curated by:

Spark+Echo Arts

2015

Short Film

Primary Scripture

Those who go down to the sea in ships,
who do business in great waters;
These see Yahweh’s deeds,
and his wonders in the deep.
For he commands, and raises the stormy wind,
which lifts up its waves.
They mount up to the sky; they go down again to the depths.
Their soul melts away because of trouble.
They reel back and forth, and stagger like a drunken man,
and are at their wits’ end.
Then they cry to Yahweh in their trouble,
and he brings them out of their distress.
He makes the storm a calm,
so that its waves are still.
Then they are glad because it is calm,
so he brings them to their desired haven.
Let them praise Yahweh for his loving kindness,
for his wonderful deeds for the children of men!
Let them exalt him also in the assembly of the people,
and praise him in the seat of the elders.

Psalms 107:23-32

Share This Art:

I set out in creating this piece to make a theatrical film – since I am primarily a theatre artist, I wanted to retain elements of the theatrical, but wanted to create a response to this verse that could be fully experienced by anyone who interacted with the work via the website. In reading my section of Psalm 107, I was struck by two major elements: the importance of water and travel in the merchants who go out on this journey to another shore, and the way that God chooses to show his might: by bringing them to their knees and then guiding them to safer shores.

The first image I had was a woman in red, standing in the middle of a river with a suitcase, uncertain of where her journey will take her. The second image was an origami boat. These two images became central to the visual narrative of the piece. I think what emerged out of that, on a personal and artistic level, was the theme of uncertainty. When we set out on journeys, we have a false sense of knowing where they are going, how they will turn out. What this psalm teaches is that none of us know what may happen on that journey, or how the experience of the journey will affect us, or whether, at the end of it, we will look back on the journey and regret it. All we know is that the pieces (some might say wreckage) of the lives we have made for ourselves inevitably finds its way through with us, and ultimately, we must discover what we will keep, what we will give away and what will follow us no matter how much we try to leave it behind.

Spark Notes

The Artist's Reflection

Lauren Ferebee is a Texan native and a multidisciplinary artist whose primary mediums are playwriting and installation/video art.

Most recently, her play The Reckless Season was selected for Stage West’s Southwest Playwriting Competition Festival of New Works, and her alternative screwball comedy Sexual Geography was a finalist for the Reva Shiner Comedy Award at the Bloomington Playwrights’ Project. In 2014, she was a juried fellow at Saltonstall Arts Colony, a semifinalist for the Shakespeare’s Sister fellowship and the first theatre-artist-in-residence at HUB-BUB in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where in addition to writing, she did community-based theatre work.

Her most recent work includes Sexual Geography (developed at HUB-BUB), The Reckless Season (The Spartanburg Little Theatre/HUB-BUB), Somewhere Safer (FringeNYC 2013, Inkwell finalist), and Blood Quantum (At Hand Theatre & WET Productions). Three of her short plays, jericho, jericho, Bob Baker’s End of the World and The Pirate King are published online at indietheaternow.com, where Somewhere Safer is also published as part of the 2013 Fringe Collection.

She is a member of playwriting collective Lather, Rinse, Repeat, and studied playwriting, screenwriting and television writing at Primary Stages/ESPA. Lauren also has regional and NYC credits as an actress on stage and in film, and from 2007-2010 was co-artistic director of a site-specific classical theatre company, Rebellious Subjects Theatre. She especially enjoys acting in and teaching Shakespeare and working on new plays. She holds a BFA in drama from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.