A poetically interpretative, dreamlike performance will soon take the Kleinau Theater stage in the form of “Metaphysique D’Ephemera.”

“Metaphysique” will run Thursday through Saturday. Craig Gingrich-Philbrook, who has directed stage performances for more than 20 years, 15 of which were at SIU, serves as the play’s director. Post-modernism has influenced his experimental style through the years, notably with his previous work “The Phrenologist’s Daughter,” ultimately arriving now at “Metaphysique,” enabling him to express his style with the public as well as students.

“I try to go back and forth, from my own solo work to directing,” he said. “That way I get to work with the students in a couple different capacities, to work with them together in making something as well as just showing my solo work process to them.”

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From past plays with zombies or post-apocalyptic worlds to the dreamlike essence of “Metaphysique,” he said he has always wanted to do a show about Joseph Cornell, who was an artist and avant-garde filmmaker who shot many films during the 1950s. Cornell’s work inspired this production, written by husband and wife Christopher Shipman and Sarah K. Jackson.

“Sarah was actually in the ‘Phrenologist’s Daughter’ as this kind of Zombie Rabbit when she was an undergraduate here and went on to do her masters and doctoral work at LSU,” Gingrich-Philbrook said. “It was as part of her education there that they wrote the show and then she directed it.”

As an experimental director, he has oftentimes let the script develop as it is rehearsed. With “Metaphysique”, he now has a script that predates the show.

“[It’s] kind of a Theatre-Making club devising, where the director and the cast write the show together over the course of rehearsal and that’s my main way of working,” Gringrich-Philbrook said. “This is the first time ever that I’ve come in to direct a group show with a preexisting script. And I really do love it.”

This production involves the themes of universal love, portrayed through characters that are animalistic in nature, with players such as the Bird, the Rabbit, the Cat-Prince,the Ballerina and the experimental character known as the Means of Production. We find them on their search through memories as they explore the impermanence of life itself.

Nichole Nicholson, a graduate student in speech communication from Ottawa, was cast in the role of the Cat-Prince.

“We have a super amazing cast of people who are really dedicated to this process and a director who is so careful about the kinds of choices he makes and what he wants it to look like and what he wants this experience to be like for an audience,” Nicholson said. “I very much believe that the show will be one of the most beautiful that’s happened in our theatre. It’s visually very stunning.”

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Gingrich-Philbrook said audiences should approach the show differently than they would the average play.

“I would like people to know that it’s a strange, surreal, poetic show – it doesn’t have a traditional linear narrative,” he said. “I wouldn’t want people to come expecting a traditional performance, if they approach it like a very strange dream, it’s so much the better.”

“Metaphysique D’Ephemera” will be performed at the Kleinau Theatre on the second floor of the Communications Building. Admission is $5 for students with an I.D. and $7 for general admission. It begins each night at 8 p.m. and doors open at 7:30 p.m.