Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Two women playwrights explore new forms to get further to the core of things

• By drediman
• April 19, 2016
• No Comments

Currently on display on the boards of New York theater are two thought-provoking works from two boundary-pushing women playwrights.

First up is Antlia Pneumatica (RECOMMENDED) by Anne Washburn, which is enjoying a world premiere run at Playwrights Horizons. Ms. Washburn is fast becoming one of our most successfully probing and curious playwrights, male or female. Her recent plays, which include the thrillingly dystopian Mr. Burns and the less successful but equally fascinating 10 out of 12, show a mind at restless work, eager to explore new territories both in form and content. Her latest, Antlia Pneumatica – an existentially-minded play about a reunion of childhood friends that covers the notions of reality, memory, and time – is certainly no different. Ms. Washburn’s work, one of her more expansive efforts thus far, is directed with a precise hand by Ken Rus Schmoll and calls to mind the cold detachment and affect-less grace of Richard Maxwell’s work. It’s also acted with a quiet grace by a cast of six (plus two off-stage voices) that suits the text perfectly. It must be said, however, that the production’s ethereal, almost dream-like quality and lax pacing comes at the consequence of audience engagement – at the performance I attended, there were a few very stagnant moments in the play during which I saw heads nodding.

Downtown at Soho Rep., Alice Birch’s new play Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), which opened tonight, pulsates like a heart in arrest. Ms. Birch’s play, originally commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company and is here making its U.S. premiere, is a stark comparison to Ms. Washburn’s play. Although both playwrights eschew naturalism completely in favor of heightened conceptual encounters, Ms. Birch is, by metaphor, the angry, impulsive rebel and Ms. Washburn the geeky, precociously intellectual student. Ms. Birch, a rising British playwright who is making her American debut with this play, here has written a piece about escalating attempts at revolution by women – through the way they communicate, the way they choose to view the world, the way they use their bodies, and ultimately through violence. Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. is heavily influenced by the works by the likes of Sarah Kane – it’s fractured, hallucinatory, and in-your-face. But unlike the late, great Ms. Kane, whose world view was pitch black and drenched in nihilism, Ms. Birch angrily rails against the world not out of existential despair but because of her intense love for it (as evidenced by the often playful nature of her work). Directed with stylish intensity by up-and-coming director Lileana Blain-Cruz (Ms. Blain-Cruz recently helmed Lucas Hnath’s Red Speedo at New York Theatre Workshop) and fearlessly acted by a quartet of young actors, Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. is an auspicious premiere that demands to be seen. It’s a searing introduction to a major new talent.

ANTLIA PNEUMATICA
Off-Broadway, Play
Playwrights Horizons
1 hour, 45 minutes (without an intermission)
Through May 15

REVOLT. SHE SAID. REVOLT AGAIN.
Off-Broadway, Play
Soho Rep.
1 hour, 5 minutes (without an intermission)
Through April 24