Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Models of bad romances: Michelle Williams in ANNA CHRISTIE and the American premiere of BLACKOUT SONGS

• By drediman
• January 30, 2026
• No Comments

Sometimes it takes being in a toxic relationship to feel fully alive. Like drugs, however, the habit can be dangerously addictive and even life-threatening when engaged in excessively. Currently on the boards, you can find a pair of Off-Broadway plays that exemplify such types of romances — one a major revival of a rarely performed play from one of our most revered playwrights, the other the American premiere of a new work by an exciting up-and-coming writer. As per usual, read on for my further thoughts.

BLACKOUT SONGS
The Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space
Through February 28

Let’s first turn our attention to Joe White’s Blackout Songs (RECOMMENDED), which is making its U.S. premiere at the Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space (note that the production is a rental and not an official MCC Theater presentation). The two-hander was originally seen across the pond in London, where it was well received and nominated for a coveted Olivier Award. Transpiring over a number of years, the gutsy new play — simultaneously a romance and a psychological thriller — is a study of an “on again, off again” relationship between a pair of alcoholics, two lost souls whose turbulent, tug-of-war romance is fueled by heavy drinking and unhealthy co-dependency. Episodic and bleakly romantic, the piece essentially combines the unflinching premise of Days of Wine and Roses and the breathless staccatoed rhythms of Nick Payne’s Constellations. Also like Payne’s two-hander, Blackout Songs consists of shards of puzzle-like information that leaves it up to the audience to piece together and make sense of the couple’s unfolding story. White’s writing is notable for artfully mimicking the sensation of weaving in and out of alcohol-induced blackouts (as experienced by the characters), even blurring the line between reality and fabricated imagination at certain moments. Director Rory McGregor handles White’s rapid fire scenes with aplomb, thanks in no small part to the excellent work of his sound and lighting designers. The production is anchored by the heartrending turns by Abbey Lee and Owen Teague, whose emotionally wrought and intensely physical performances are relentless and harrowing. Indeed, they are extremely convincing as doomed lovers — individuals desperately searching for their respective identities but can only find them in each other and in seductive the embrace of alcoholic intoxication.

ANNA CHRISTIE
St. Ann’s Warehouse
Through February 1

This week, I also finally caught up with the highly anticipated revival of Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie (RECOMMENDED) at St. Ann’s Warehouse in DUMBO. Although better known for penning meaty and mature American dramas such as Long Day’s Journey Into Night and The Iceman Cometh, O’Neill received early recognition for this flawed but fascinating 1920 play about a former prostitute — the titular Anna Christie — whose attempt at turning her life around is met with resistance when both her father and new boyfriend make it practically block her from claiming control over her own life. Headlined by Michelle Williams in the title role, the production has been directed by Thomas Kail (of Hamilton fame), who has given the play an atmospheric and stylish staging, whose spare, haunted look (courtesy of set designers Christine Jones and Brett J. Banakis, as well as lighting designer Natasha Katz) has released the piece from naturalism and propelled it into the realm of the ghostly/mythic. The production’s dreamlike quality is further heightened by choreographer Steven Hoggett, who has made a career out of creating emotive movements that animate characters’ inner lives. Williams gives Anna a distinctly modern sensibility that sheds new light on her various interactions with the play’s other characters. This Anna clearly refuses to be a damsel in distress; her bold decisions come not from a place of desperation but from icy calculation. Sharing the stage with the game film star are Tom Sturridge as Anna’s new beau and Brian d’Arcy James as her father — and neither of them are slouches. Sturridge ups the brutishness, giving an animalistic performance that is ripe with guttural intensity, while d’Arcy James brings disarming gravity to a somewhat delusional old man. To boot, the great Mare Winningham is superb in a small and underwritten role.