Rachael Warren and Stephen Thorne in Shapeshifter, about a girl and mythical beings on a remote Scottish island.

Mark Turek

Is there a grain of truth to Shapeshifter, the latest from Trinity Rep? Or is it all a fantastical fairy tale? Audiences will have to sort that out for themselves when Laura Schellhardt’s world-premiere play about life in a remote Scottish fishing village opens in previews tomorrow.

The play takes place on an isolated island where only a handful of people live. Think Scotland’s desolate Orkney Islands, said director Laura Kepley. A young girl named Midge has lost her mother and is looking for direction in her life through three mythical beings.

The play, which is 90 minutes long with no intermission, is strung together from a series of stories based on Celtic and Viking myths told by the grandfatherly Martin Fierson, played by Brian McEleney. The tales offer a way for Midge to heal and understand her life, said Kepley.

“Depending on what you want to believe,” she said, “you can say it’s all real or it’s all make-believe. It’s clear we are seeing things through Midge’s eyes, but the stories live between real and imaginary.”

Interestingly, Kepley and Schellhardt were both students at Brown when Schellhardt wrote the first draft of Shapeshifter in 2003. The two Lauras were, in fact, paired together on this project, with Schellhardt doing the writing and Kepley directing a hastily produced workshop performance.

Miriam Silverman, who plays Midge in this production, was also the original Midge when the play was done at Brown and she was a Brown/Trinity consortium student. The play was written first semester, then about eight days were set aside the next semester to rehearse and perform it.

All the original characters are still in place, said Kepley, it’s just that the relationships are “thicker and deeper.”

Silverman’s character is “our way into the play. We follow her journey after the death of her mother. The play is working through that and finding healing.”

In a sense, Midge conjures up the three mythical creatures — a seal/woman, a swan/woman and a dragon/woman — all played by company member Rachael Warren. The dragon, said Kepley, is sort of the inner demon of Midge, who wonders what it would be like to make the spirit of her deceased mother into a dragon shapeshifter.

Midge creates these figures in her mind, but as Kepley said, she loses control of them. They have minds of their own.

Mairie, the selkie or seal/woman, is the most human, while the swan/woman is a mix of the two. The dragon waffles back and forth between the two forms.

But the play is not performed with masks and the like, said Kepley. It is up to the audience to fill in details in their minds.

“The audience has to meet us halfway,” she said.

Warren uses a lot of physical movements to get across the attributes of the animal side of her characters. “The fun is we get to invent and create a lot,” said Kepley.

Sound designer John Gromada has also invented a selkie language of sorts and seal-like sounds used when Warren opens her mouth, said Kepley.

The swan transforms into a woman through sound and shadow, she said.

The action is played out on Loy Arcenas’ stark but flexible set with tidal pools, an abstracted fisherman’s cottage and rocks littering the floor. Even though the play is just an hour and a half long, it contains 21 scenes in 9 locations, so the transitions become part of the story.

“The play just keeps flowing along, otherwise the transitions would take longer than the play,” Kepley said.

So far, there have been no major revisions on the play, just a few “nips and tucks” while Schellhardt, who lives in Chicago, was dropping in on rehearsal.

“There’s no such thing as a play being frozen until opening night,” said Kepley, “which is both crazy and fantastic.”

Shapeshifter opens tomorrow and runs through May 31 in the downstairs theater at Trinity Rep, 201 Washington St., Providence. Tickets start at $20. Call (401) 351-4242 or log on to www.trinityrep.com.

cgray@projo.com