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QuickTake:
Opening at Oregon Contemporary Theatre this weekend, “The Fifth Hypothesis” is a new play by Paul Calandrino about an expert Bigfoot researcher and her skeptical brother, who has been tasked to dole out a windfall to her if she can prove her sanity.
Paul Calandrino is about 97.5% sure, give or take, that Bigfoot exists.
Driven by dual lifelong fervent interests in human origins and unexplained phenomena, the Eugene playwright has spent years knee-deep in Sasquatch literature, and has gone on an expedition in the Canadian Rockies with a controversial researcher.
He understands that some people don’t share his belief. But now, Calandrino has written a play premiering this weekend called “The Fifth Hypothesis,” about a Bigfoot researcher and her estranged skeptic brother, that neither ridicules nor validates either viewpoint.
The play borrows its name from Bigfoot literature. In his book “The Discovery of the Sasquatch,” the wildlife biologist John Bindernagel described five hypotheses explaining why people have long reported sightings of the elusive cryptid. The first four represent prevailing wisdom of myths, hoaxes, hallucinations or mistaken sightings.
All four hypotheses require logical leaps that Calandrino’s crew lay out in the play. Longtime hunters would have had to mistake bears for apes. A decentralized network of hoaxers would have had to seed footprints in remote wooded areas in hopes of later discovery. A hyper-realistic ape suit in 1967, beyond what many think was possible at the time, would have had to be used in the famous Patterson-Gimlin film.
The fifth is simpler, Bigfoot believers hold: an Ice Age-era bipedal ape crossed a land strait, settled in the deep woods and has only been rarely seen since.
“I say all of this with the idea that, I say it as if it’s an actual thing, but it’s assuming that Bigfoot is real,” Calandrino said. “Bigfoot might not be real.”
“The Fifth Hypothesis” is not a persuasive lecture on cryptozoology one way or the other. Instead, it makes its home in that 2.5% sliver of doubt. There is no objective confirmation of Sasquatch in the play — only whooping from the woods, and the question of whether the characters believe.
Believe it or not
Astrid, the central Sasquatch researcher in “The Fifth Hypothesis,” is not a crackpot with big theories. (Though one of her assistants, Decker, is admittedly a bit “woo.”) She’s a scientist, a once-respected ecologist who walked away from her formal training to find Bigfoot.
That was an important distinction for Calandrino, who has met doctors, active military members, police officers, psychologists, businesspeople, and ordinary legitimate people who have reported Bigfoot encounters.
“There’s no way to make fun of these people who have had these experiences with Sasquatch,” he said. “I suppose you can lampoon them, but the many people that I’ve met are serious people. They’re not just uneducated white guys with guns.”
If anything, the character who is the butt of the joke is Max, Astrid’s brother and a skeptic who refuses to hear his sister out. He reenters her life when their Uncle Bill dies and leaves a multimillion dollar inheritance to the siblings for Max to administer, under the condition that Astrid can prove she’s of sound mind, even after her jump into Bigfoot world.
Astrid describes a childhood experience of being kidnapped and taken care of by a family of Sasquatch, which Max has denied for decades. But the question of the story’s veracity and Bigfoot’s existence is left open, even if the playwright has his own personal answers.
“I’m going to leave it up to the audience to decide,” he said. “I think people are going to say, ‘Oh, it was trauma.’ Some people are going to say, ‘It could be one or the other.’”
Rounding out a Bigfoot research crew
Astrid’s crew includes other true believers, inspired by Calandrino’s deep dives into Bigfoot media and a Sasquatch expedition he went on in British Columbia while working on the play. (He didn’t hear any vocalizations or see any direct evidence, but spent time soaking up what it meant to search for Bigfoot.)
Jeffra, one of Astrid’s researchers, shares testimony of her own Bigfoot encounter heavily inspired by a story from the podcast “Bigfoot and Beyond,” where a woman heard an animal in the distance and then saw one standing 30 feet away from her.
Bindernagel, the author who came up with the five hypotheses that inspired the play, has a proxy through Dr. Sondernagel, Astrid’s trusted emeritus professor friend and a part of the research team.
The look and feel of the crew’s site came from personal experience. Much of the play’s action takes place around Astrid’s double-wide trailer, while the precious Sasquatch habituation site is in an undisclosed off-stage location.
Footprint cast props on-set are from Calandrino’s personal collection of Bigfoot ephemera. A “butt print,” though, was created for the play, mimicking one at a Bigfoot museum in Blue Ridge, Georgia.
“Our props masters said she had to do some of the strangest research she’s ever had to do,” Calandrino said.
The most prominent researcher in Calandrino’s experience might not have a direct corollary in “The Fifth Hypothesis,” but he’ll be present in his own way. Literally: Bigfoot researcher Todd Standing, whom Calandrino accompanied on a Bigfoot expedition, will be coming to Eugene for the play and an accompanying documentary screening and discussion.
(Standing’s work is controversial in the Bigfoot community, with some questioning the authenticity of his footage. In 2018, his lawsuit attempting to get the government of British Columbia to acknowledge Bigfoot’s existence was dismissed.)
Standing’s talk will include a new piece of footage, named after the man who funded the expedition it documented: the Calandrino film.
How to see ‘The Fifth Hypothesis’
The play opens Saturday, Feb. 28, and runs through Sunday, March 15.
Thursday, Friday and Saturday performances begin at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday matinees begin at 2 p.m.
Tickets are available online at Oregon Contemporary Theatre’s website, starting at $25, with better seats available for $42 to $52.
A ticket to play also grants admission to a Friday, Feb. 27, screening of “Discovering Bigfoot: An Evening With Todd Standing,” a documentary screening and discussion with Standing, moderated by Calandrino. Tickets to the “Discovering Bigfoot” event are also available separately for $10.