Original production explores the creative power of playful adaption.

A complicated theory becomes an elegant dramatic statement when West Sound Academy takes to the stage on this weekend.

Translated to theater by WSA staff and students, theories on “complex systems” and “non-linear dynamics” became “Thing with No Name,” an original production that appears Jan. 30-31 at BPA.

WSA art teacher Greg MacDonald’s original script both explains and embodies the theory, which was developed at the Santa Fe Institute, a multidisciplinary research and education center.

“As I understand it,” Macdonald said, “the basic idea is that when complex systems interact and adapt to each other as they do all around us, they will eventually reach a point of change, a cusp where the resulting behavior is disproportionate to the input.

“If you raise the level of complexity in a system, allow for feedback to the system and adaptation to the feedback, at a certain point big things happen suddenly.”

In writing rich in allusions, puns and metaphor, MacDonald weaves a layered story-line loosely organized around a quest to discover the contents of a mysterious box.

Throughout the play, seemingly random associations of characters and images coalesce as systems increase in complexity, a process described by the character Phase, played by Brandon Rain:

“…If you put a bunch of things together and they are sensitive to each other….you know, real playful like…they start adapting to each other. Then you add more and you have things adapting to each other as they are being adapted to.

“The whole thing folds on itself like taffy until it reaches…a tipping point, you know, a phase transition, where suddenly all kinds of new things start happening…”

Some of the juxtapositions coalesce particularly well.

SWA senior Eric Sutherland, who composed the score for the work, plays Anthony C. – half mobster, half scholar.

Slouching at the electronic keyboard as if he had his feet under a table at the local dive, Anthony C. ripples out a playful melody by early modernist Erik Satie.

“The role is kind of interesting,” Sutherland said, “because you’re juxtaposing a goombah gangster with a heavy intellectual.”

Big things

The evolution of the annual WSA event, which began six years ago as an evening to display students’ art in separate-but-equal exhibits, may also be a case in point.

The traditional exhibits were presented side by side until MacDonald upped the ante last year by rolling the arts together, and wrapping the whole in quantum theory.

The wrap-around approach to the event suits WSA, a private middle- and secondary- school located in Suquamish. The school, which numbers many Bainbridge kids among its student body, takes an integrated approach to teaching arts and science.

“Performance is an important part of our education here,” MacDonald said. “It gives the kids a chance to solidify their learning.”

Like complexity theory itself, this year’s production parallels the creative process of artists, writers and musicians.

“Much of it came from what I experienced teaching art in the first place,” MacDonald said. “I have to learn to explain it to my students, what I go through making art.”

The collaborative piece harnessed the creative power of both teachers and students – including choreography by dance instructor Susan Thompson, staging by drama instructor Michael Payne and contributions from three student poets.

“We’re really making art here together,” MacDonald said.

“Put enough stuff together and things will happen – like here, greater than the sum of its parts.”

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West Sound Academy presents “Thing with No Name,” 7:30 p.m. Jan 30 and 31 at Bainbridge Performing Arts.

Art by WSA students is also on view through January in the gallery at the Playhouse lobby, which is open to the public.

Admission to the performance is $12 for adults, $8 for students and seniors. Ticket reservations: (360) 598-5954

For more information visit www.westsoundacademy.org.