Love and Information

This play is very unique and another thoroughly enjoyable installment of the New York Theatre Workshop.  Actually, less of a play more a series of thematic vignettes - long and short.  Broken down into 8 chapters, Caryl Churchill imbues each chapter with a theme that is then explored in several usually quick slices of life she presents.  Funny, sad, poignant, smart, coy, cunning, deceptive - you name it - she's got it.

The cast of 15 is usually, but not exclusively, paired in twos and is always introduced by a sound effect that relates to the scene.  Part of the formula for success is the bare white stage box and lighting effect at the scene changes that completely blacks out the view.  Very binary, very data-oriented, very sparse.  It focuses you on the topic of the scene.  There's a fair amount of thinking or processing that has to go on - that is - if you are trying to decode each scene and chapter.

By the time chapter 4 came along I started to figure out a pattern.  I just wish they would have displayed that theme when they flashed the chapter number up on the scrim.  It really would have made a quicker and stronger association to the content as it unfolded.  They could have at least printed it in the Playbill so we could have all reflected upon it afterwards.  And believe me, this one generated a lot of conversation afterwards.

With 57 individual vignettes over 2 hours, there was quite a bit to recall fondly.

A Civil War Christmas

Paula Vogel has penned a historical perspective on an age-old tradition - Christmas.  Her version is a dramatic triptych on the holiday which takes place during the civil war.  Each of the 3 main plot perspectives share equally in the joy and sadness of the historical holiday - smack in the middle of the civil war - Stories from the North, the South, and the always steady Abe and emotionally unstable Mary Lincoln centrally located in the White house.

It's not quite a musical but more of a play with music - but less-so a play and more story-telling theatrical experience. The music was all Christmas carols cleverly placed throughout the scenes.  All the fine actors in full regalia and costumes played multiple characters with little-to-no scenery - merely a few props and chairs upon which the fine actors created an entire landscape and mood.  

Of all the extremely talented actors, the one stand-out performer was Jonathan-David (yes, i correctly hyphenated his "name") as Ely Parker, Silver, Frederick Wormley, Moses Levy and others.  Clearly a trained dancer, a fine improv actor, and vocally impressive.  A stalwart and stubborn Mary Lincoln was played with Aplomb by Alice Ripley.

Having already seen Lincoln (Daniel Day Lewis) on the big screen just the weekend before and seeing this show just before Christmas put me in just the right mood.  I doubt this one would go over very well in August, but certainly a heart-warming, entertaining history-lesson on the small stage down at the New York Theatre Workshop on East 4th.