Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Winter Miller’s episodic new play NO ONE IS FORGOTTEN is a distressing tête-à-tête

• By drediman
• July 20, 2019
• No Comments

Sarah Nina Hayon and Renata Friedman star in Winter Miller’s “No One Is Forgotten” at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Photo by Paula Court.

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to catch Winter Miller’s new play No One Is Forgotten at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in the West Village. The new play, which is being presented by Winter Miller’s Community Theater, tells the story of two women held in captivity. We don’t know particularly where they are, what they’ve done to be incarcerated, nor how long they’ve been imprisoned (even the chronology of the scenes is unclear). All we see are snippets of their interactions.

It’s always exciting to hear a new voice. In No One Is Forgotten, Ms. Miller combines the existential angst of Beckett with the raw explicitness of more recent playwrights like Adam Rapp. The play’s lack of specificity is what makes it so immediately relatable, and therefore so terrifying. Even if the play ultimately strikes me as more of an appetizer — and a precursor to undoubtedly greater, more important works — than a balanced, fully satisfying meal, the craft in Ms. Miller’s work is readily apparent. Particularly, she shows a great capacity for compassion towards and between her characters.

Ms. Miller also exhibits talent as a director, staging her own play like a desperate dance, bringing to mind the intimate tête-à-tête of the plays of August Strindberg (especially Dance of Death and Miss Julie). As the two prisoners, Renata Friedman and Sarah Nina Hayon admirably throw themselves at their roles, both physically and emotionally. It’s a testament to their commitment as serious actresses that a good number of the play’s episodic scenes come across as distressingly as they do.

RECOMMENDED

NO ONE IS FORGOTTEN
Off-Broadway, Play
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater
1 hour, 30 minutes (without an intermission)
Through July 27