A 21st-century wife, mother and engineer examines her life’s choices, and in doing so talks with the devil and an artist’s ghost.

How new is Fate and Spinoza? As new as this winter quarter, during which the director, Granada Artist-in-Residence Rinde Eckert, wrote the play's text and music during rehearsal with students in the Department of Theatre and Dance.

The play is set for a preview performance Feb. 28, and the world premiere is scheduled the next night. Subsequent performances are scheduled through March 9 in Main Theatre.

Fate and Spinoza revolves around April Lansky, who is inexplicably compelled to revisit a hotel from her past, a building that is about to be torn down. There she encounters the devil and the ghost of artist David (Spinoza) Cornell.

Through dialogue with these characters in the room that once was the artist's studio, April recovers that which she lost 20 years earlier. The mythic presence of 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza permeates the work as characters examine the past in order to come to terms with the present.

Spinoza concluded that most of what we claim about the world is really not true, that free will is a figment of our imagination.

"Rinde's pieces are always theatrically surprising," said Professor Peter Lichtenfels, chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance. "He has that rare happy knack of being both entertaining and thought provoking.

"Rinde is an artist who layers his pieces through singing, dancing, acting and playing musical instruments. It is this range, and how he uses it to tell stories, that I admire, and why I am so excited at his creation of Fate and Spinoza with our students."

Eckert explained that his inspiration came from his interest in the physical and intellectual instruments of perception or lack of perception, seeing and not seeing.

"I've been fascinated with isolation and issues of isolation in society," said the playwright-composer-director-performer. "I tend to get interested in, and concentrate on, a specific area of interest in several pieces before I move on."

A prelude to Fate and Spinoza was Eckert's theater piece for the University of Iowa Medical School, Eye Piece, concerning macular degeneration and blindness. Another stepping stone was Slide, Eckert's workshop sketch based on scientific research demonstrating how human perception is influenced by suggestion.

While Fate and Spinoza entertains with poetic dialogue, humor and music, it may also alter vision and understanding through new views of the eye, perception, blindness, fate and Spinoza.

The cast includes master of fine arts acting candidates Rebecca David, Hope Mirlis, Timothy Orr, Christine Samson and Victor Toman. The production team includes MFA candidates Carrie Mullen (lighting and scenic design), Nancy Pipkin (costume design) and Randy Symank (assistant director), undergraduates Emily Hartman (stage manager) and Christian Savage (sound design).

AT A GLANCE

WHAT: Fate and Spinoza

WHEN: 8 p.m. Feb. 28 (preview), Feb. 29-March 1 and March 6-8; and 2 p.m. March 9

WHERE: Main Theatre

TICKETS: (530) 754-2787 or (866) 754-2787, or www.mondaviarts.org

ADVISORY: The Department of Theatre and Dance cautions that the production contains adult language.