L.A. TIMES, Friday Jan. 31, 2004 THEATER BEAT

Changes wrought by fate and by courage

The title of Lyena Strelkoff's "Caterpillar Soup" refers to the process that
occurs in a cocoon before it delivers a butterfly. That's an apt metaphor
for this intimate solo account of an accident that Strelkoff suffered in
2002 and of its life-altering aftermath.

As Suzanne Teng's New Age music swells, Kathi O'Donohue's subtle lighting
silhouettes a gesticulating figure in a wheelchair. The figure is Strelkoff,
whose fine-boned beauty and soul-baring eyes suggest a fawn in the forest,
establishing her theme alongside a stylized projected tree.

After having "the best orgasm of my life," lifelong tree-climber and dancer
Strelkoff joined boyfriend Dean, who emerges as "Caterpillar Soup's" other
heroic figure, for a hike in Malibu's Charmlee Park. Halfway up a tree, she
heard "a very loud crack." A rotted branch and a somersaulting 25-foot drop
left her instantly paralyzed from the waist down.

Throughout, "Caterpillar Soup" combines the gentle lyricism of a Ziggurat
Theatre Ensemble outing (Strelkoff is a founding Ziggurat member) with
harrowing clinical details, as if an origami crane were made from diary
entries. Under Paul Linke's delicate direction, Strelkoff shares her
experiences and encounters over the last two years with grace, dry humor and
radiant spirituality.

As a performance piece, "Caterpillar Soup" might be somewhat tighter, but
that is beside the point. If such intensely personal material defies
standard theatrical assessment, so too does Strelkoff's vast emotional
range, which could melt granite. In her regenerative hope and raw honesty,
this wholly courageous artist is, in the truest sense, both humbling and
inspiring.

--David C. Nichols