Tea as Pretext and Elixir: A Tea Party at the End of the World at Rochester Fringe

At Sunday’s Tea Party at the End of the World, creator and performer Jessica Creane introduced the 28-person audience in the Garden Studio to a pu-erh leaf tea aged 70 years. She described it as a tea that, as soon as it seems to be losing its flavor, surprises you. It’s a tea, she says, that rallies. It has difficulty letting go.

So does Creane, whose show takes on themes such as loss, love, and death. Tea is both the pretext and an elixir. It’s a metaphor for ways of being. It’s also a warm portal to stories about her dad’s unforeseen death and a trip to the Arctic Circle, both of which pushed her to confront thoughts about the end of the world. His world, her world. The world.

What was her dad’s end of the world like? What did he think in those final, lonely moments? What might we want the end of our worlds to look like, sound like, feel like? More tea to help contemplate, of course. Dried leaves, too, are passed around in hand bowls, their aroma unlocking deeper reflections as the audience shares visions, one by one, of an ideal end and ruminations on what final thoughts may pass through us as we reach the end of the world.

The Arctic Circle, in its starkness, with its crashing glaciers and banging sheets of floating ice, becomes imagery for such existential thoughts. Creane is on a boat, so far north that the Aurora Borealis is in the rear. At first, it’s a peaceful scene. But intrusive thoughts push in, and peace slips further away. Creane describes an existential angst in waiting for the next crash of a glacier, for the end of the world.

Tea is also a pretext for openness. Not just an openness to others, but to love. Teas prepared against the strict code of tea drinkers are offered, a gesture of discovery. There’s a dip in the Arctic Ocean, too. Eventually, the whole tent is in tears as Creane grapples with the impossibilities of accepting love, of the paradoxical nature of finding it in the most mundane moments. Creane’s emotional journey becomes our own as we hold our tea in our hands and drink, staring down the end of the world in the bottom of a teacup.

There are four more showings of Tea Party at the End of the World at the ESL Rochester Fringe Festival that aren’t sold out: two on Friday and two on Saturday. Each show has only 30 seats. Tickets can be purchased here.