Review - The Events

After seeing a new play called The American Pilot about eight or nine years ago (yikes, is it that long already?!), I put the playwright, David Greig, on my list of 'writers to keep an eye on.'  I found that play very provocative, yet very even-handed and not sensational at all, which I found effective in a play about war.  When New York Theatre Workshop announced they would be doing a play of his this season, I asked my Generous Handsome Friend (who just happens to be a subscriber to NYTW) to please allow me to accompany him to the play.  Luckily for me, GHF took me to the show last night.

The Events is being presented at NYTW, but is a production of the Actors Touring Company.  It premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where it won several awards, and has been touring Europe for awhile.  Inspired by a mass shooting in Norway, the play tells the story of a fictional shooting of a community choir, and focuses on the aftermath and how it continues to affect a survivor, Claire.  Claire is a vicar and was the director of the community choir, so she suffers from survivor's guilt and (possibly) post-traumatic stress syndrome.  We see her struggle to understand why the shooting happened, why she survived, and was the shooter crazy or just evil?  Many questions are brought up throughout the evening.

One of the unique features of The Events is that it features an onstage choir and every performance features a different choir from around the city.  They sing hymns and other songs, and say a few lines here and there, representing the community, along with representing (I think) both the choir members who died in the shooting and the new choir that comes from the ashes.  They also serve as a sort of Greek chorus, with some in-unison dialogue and physical action.

A lot happens in The Events, yet, it seemed very static to me.  I was prepared to be overwhelmed with emotion - I even reconsidered seeing the show, thinking it might be just too much for me.  But the qualities that I so enjoyed in Greig's previous play, the even-handedness and the non-sensational qualities, rather hampered the storytelling here, at least for me.  I don't believe it needed to be manipulative or exploitative, but it needed to have some deep emotion to really have an impact.  I was intrigued, I thought a lot of the dialogue was fascinating and could've led to something interesting, but it usually didn't.

photo credit: Richard Termine

The performance was stylized here and there, and more abstract than realistic much of the time, though the actors' playing styles were pretty subdued.  Along with the actress playing Claire, there was one other actor playing all of the other characters, including a psychiatrist, a reporter, the shooter's father, a political leader, and most intriguingly, the shooter.  I found his affect as the shooter most intriguing, the other characters just sort of blended together and I was frequently confused by who was portraying at any given time.  Occasionally, the playwright would throw in a hint, which was helpful, but varying the playing style would also have helped.  Of course, I understand it may have been a directorial choice to have all of the characters in this victim's world seem to be exactly the same, but ultimately, it was also a factor in the distancing from the emotion.

I liked a lot of the ideas behind the piece and I did find much of the dialogue interesting - for example, Clair has a monologue about the moment she felt her soul leave her body (because she was sure she would die) and it was fascinating - but the execution of the ideas didn't quite gel for me.  Also, the choir was a little bit of a disappointment.  Other performances have had choirs who have been performing together for a long time, but we saw a choir sort of cobbled together from a bunch of people who wanted to participate in the show.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, it just made less of a cohesive statement of the power of the group, since they weren't really a group, just a collection of individuals.  They didn't relate to each other spatially as much as a long-term choir would, so that quality also lessened the impact, I think.  I do want to say, though, that although I didn't enjoy the piece as much as I wanted, I am grateful for my GHF for taking me and we did have a fun drink and snack after the play. 

I also want to say that as I've been typing this, I've been enjoying a prosciutto/fig jam/goat cheese sandwich that is so good, I'm regretting not photographing it because I can imagine it being one of my favorite dishes of the year.  I guess that means I'll just have to get another one soon and take a photo... :)