Forever @ the New York Theatre Workshop

Forever, a poignant semi-autobiographical piece written and performed by Dael Orlandersmith at New York Theatre Workshop, is a harrowing yet somehow uplifting piece on the family you are given, the family you make, and how not one of them ever truly leaves you.

Forever is a stream of thoughts which follow Orlandersmith’s journey through her life, focusing primarily on her oft drunk and always complicated mother. Orlandersmith passionately and eloquently details her abuse, her growth, the lessons she’s learned, and her journey from a young girl into a woman.  She speaks to the greats who most believe are lost (Morrison, Balzac, Piaf, and many others) and encourages the audience to listen for their voices.  She encourages you to believe that those who have died are always there, watching, interacting, whispering to you.  If you let yourself become comfortable, you will believe with her, and the journey through Forever will be all the more rewarding.

Vital to bringing the entire piece together is Orlandersmith’s powerful performance.  The version of herself she presents is brutally honest and open, but somehow still battling for that confidence to which she’s already laid claim. She finds a way to engage and mystify the audience as she weaves her tale through monologues, starting at the Pere Lachaise cemetery, trekking through Harlem, and back to the cemetery, where she converses with those who have gone before. At points, Orlandersmith evokes her mother so strongly you can almost smell the scotch and cigarettes, even though she’s been dead since 1989.

Though at times tough to listen to, Forever brings a realness and power to the stage through Orlandersmith’s words and performance that makes it, unlike anything you’re likely to see in any other theater.  The wide-open set (designed by Takeshi Kata), adorned with photos of her and her mother’s past, brings you into Orlandersmith’s world, where she welcomes you with open arms.  The invitation to post notes on the walls in honor of those who are gone but still touch your life allows you to become a part of a shared world, where the dead still have voices.

Overall, Forever is a dark but touching piece about the ways people can touch your life, even long after they’ve passed.  It is powerful, engrossing and thought provoking, and not to be missed.
Orlandersmith’s journey has the capacity to both touch and break hearts and connect to audience members on a deeply personal level, and that’s exactly what makes it such a unique journey, and one worth taking.

Review By: Jacob R. Hines

The Events @ New York Theater Workshop

The Events grips you with the expertly woven contemporary telling of a massacre that mirrors the 2011 killings in Norway, when a young man open fired on a Youth Camp.

Often combative and vulnerable, Neve McIntosh brings to life the quickly dissolving character of Claire, the community choir leader and protagonist whose journey follows through the stages of grief after a gunman opened fire on her choir. Playing all of the other characters, whether real or imagined, is Clifford Samuel. The two backed by local choir East 4th Street Singers, bring together classic and contemporary.

In Greece, it was counted as a civic duty for the community to attend theatre to consider important issues. Amateur choirs joined the professional actors onstage and here is where our world’s meld. Creative minds Ramin Gray and David Greig capture the delicacy of the event with the tentativeness of a new ensemble at every show.

Neve’s abrasiveness, coupled against Clifford’s more often calming masculine energy clash, helping the audience realize that what we are experiencing is the inside of Claire’s mind as she interviews the killer’s parents, friends; fights with her partner, and then finally speaks the The Boy himself. She tackles this character with such strength and vulnerability, it’s easy to relate even as you find yourself repulsed by her crumbling moral. Clifford Samuel plays his characters, switching with such subtlety that it highlighted his more manic co-star, leaving the audience at times confused as to who is the real villain of this story.

We are left at the end, with unanswered questions, a normal occurrence for such a tragic event as this. If you’re looking for theatre that makes you think, go see The Events.

Review By: Aziza Seven

Photos By: Matthew Murphy

Love and Information @ The Minetta Lane Theatre

New York Theatre Workshop presents an unusual and unique state-of-the-nation play, which examines, explores, celebrates and questions where we are in our contemporary society. Rather than giving us an answer or presenting a moral tale, Love and Information offers us snapshots of ourselves, existing, loving and figuring, and it is up to us to decide what we make of it. We are adrift in a sea of internet, religion, mathematics, communication, news, advertisements and Facebook. How does this affect our relationships? How does it affect our memories?

The cast of the New York Theatre Workshop production of Love and Information includes Phillip James Brannon, Randy Danson, Susannah Flood, Noah Galvin, Jennifer Ikeda, Karen Kandel, Irene Sofia Lucio, Nate Miller, Kellie Overbey, Adante Power, John Procaccino, Lucas Caleb Rooney, Maria Tucci, James Waterston and Zoë Winters. (Cast member bios may be found at the end of the press release.)

The production team is as follows: scenic design is by Miriam Buether; costume design is by Gabriel Berry and Andrea Hood; lighting design is by Peter Mumford, sound design is by Christopher Shutt.

Love and Information opened February 19th at the The Minetta Lane Theatre located at 18 Minetta Lane.