'Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp.' Off-Broadway review — four mini-dramas explore the human condition
Read our review of Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp. off Broadway, a quartet of four short plays by award-winning British playwright Caryl Churchill.
British playwright Caryl Churchill has long been considered a mover and a shaker in theatre. The Public Theater’s presentation of Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp., a collection of four of her most recent short plays, is no exception. Throughout the wildly different narratives, each one packed with suspense, runs a current of violence and discomfort, prodding at the status quo. The plays resist an easy interpretation, but as Churchill well knows, the best theatre is the kind that keeps you thinking long after the curtains close.
The first play, Glass, is perhaps the most perplexing. Its heroine is a girl made of glass (Ayana Workman) whose flesh-and-blood peers struggle to see her, and yet perceive her every thought and feeling. As per the script’s instructions, there are no visual clues for us to distinguish the glass girl from the other characters, and yet Workman plays her with such vulnerability and tentative bravery that it’s easy to believe her fragility. She may be a metaphor for the invisibility of women in society, but the message is muddled.
The second play, Kill, is a monologue delivered from a god perched atop a cloud. In a deliciously mercurial performance, Deirdre O’Connell recounts the Greek myth of the House of Atreus, beginning at the end with the poor scion who is hunted by the gods for making an impossible choice. Like a solo Greek chorus, O’Connell shifts from mischievous grins to explosive temper tantrums to sheer desperation. The monologue hurtles backward and forward through the tangled genealogy of the cursed family, emphasizing the absurdity of so much violence and so much pain until even the gods can’t take it anymore.
Next, What If If Only taps into the human tendency to wonder about what might have happened if only — except these “if onlys” become literal ghosts that haunt the protagonist simply known as “Someone” (Sathya Sridharan). The stark white room from which Someone grieves opens up to let in the ghosts of lost futures begging to become reality. When Someone finally rejects them, he is left only with the Present (John Ellison Conlee), a devil-may-care being whose indifference to the future is both baffling and oddly soothing.
The final play, Imp, is the longest. This doesn’t necessarily work in its favor, as it drags at times. However, the central characters — a pair of elderly cousins who are mostly homebound — are by far the most endearing in the whole production. Dot’s (O’Connell) sharpness in both wit and temperament hides a dark past, while congenial Jimmy (Conlee) constantly references neighborhood acquaintances living out the plots of various Greek and Shakespearean tragedies. It seems they live in a world of casual violence, which becomes all the closer when Dot decides to curse a friend (Japhet Balaban) for a slight.
Each play's set is cleverly suspended in black space — even the living-room set of Imp — giving a voyeuristic, detached quality to the audience experience. (Design is by Miriam Buether.) It’s almost as though we are peeking into four realities from a distance. And yet, the very human predicaments Churchill puts forth — whether it be obsessive revenge, obsessive grief, or obsessive belief in an invented fantasy — ring too true for us to feel comfortable watching from afar.
Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp. summary
Playwright Caryl Churchill is celebrated as a master experimenter, and these four plays are no exception. In Glass, a girl made of glass confronts a dangerous world. In Kill, a god recounts the violence within a family from Greek myth, compounded over generations from the time of their most cursed ancestor.
What If If Only follows a man mourning his recently deceased partner, haunted by the ghosts of now-impossible futures. Imp is a snapshot of a working-class British home, where all the drama is recounted in a living room and truths are not necessarily what they seem.
What to expect at Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp.
Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp. runs approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes, with one intermission after What If If Only, the third play in the lineup. The curtains drop between Glass and Kill, and again between Kill and What If If Only, to set up the new scenery — but the audience is never not entertained.
Circus acts fill the spaces between plays, first with Junru Wang’s hand balancing and then with Maddox Morfit-Tighe’s juggling routine. They both make a reappearance during What If If Only as two particularly nimble ghosts.
What audiences are saying about Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp.
At the time of publication, Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp. has a 72% audience approval rating on Show-Score, with largely positive reviews from theatregoers.
- “WEIRD AND PERFECT” -Show-Score user John 4052
- “Not Caryl Churchill’s most powerful work, but these plays make you think while being entertained.” -Show-Score user Channa T
- “A fascinating exploration of life, death, and the belief in higher authorities, or not.” -Show-Score user BSonArts
Read more audience reviews of Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp. on Show-Score.
Who should see Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp.
- Fans of Caryl Churchill’s celebrated works will not want to miss these four plays at The Public Theater, directed by the playwright’s longtime collaborator James Macdonald.
- Anyone who enjoys reading short stories will love these four bite-sized plays and the way they pack a lot of impact into fewer words than a traditional play.
- People who enjoy Greek tragedies will not only appreciate the many references (crucial for a thorough grasp of Kill), but also the way violence crops up in unexpected and imaginative ways in each play.
Learn more about Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp. off Broadway
Caryl Churchill’s quartet is an imaginative exploration of the human condition. As abstract as these plays can be, the way they catalogue our worst fears and insecurities is unlike no other.
Photo credit: Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp. off Broadway. (Photos by Joan Marcus)
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