'I Became We' Off-Broadway review — one decision, a chorus of questions

Read our review of I Became We off Broadway, created by Mona Pirnot and Jack D. Coen as a solo monologue performed by a 16-person choir.

Summary

• I Became We is an autofictional show inspired by playwright Mona Pirnot questioning whether to have a child
• The monologue is performed by a 16-person choir in a concert style, which is occasionally static but always beautifully sung

When playwright Mona Pirnot hit 35, the same age as bachelorette Bobbie in the recent genderbent Company revival, life pressed her with the question imposed on women more than men: “When will you have kids?” At least, that’s what her fictionalized, all-but-in-name avatar goes through in I Became We, her autofictional, sung-through meditation on mid-30s blues. To be clear, the playwright is not present on stage, but her “monologue with choir music” is sung by a diverse, 16-person classical choir.

Why a chamber choir in a concert-like presentation? Pirnot’s script instructs: no acting, no direction, just singers with their binders. There’s trust required of the audience to focus on Obie Award-winning conductor, composer, and co-lyricist Jack D. Coen’s piano score and Pirnot's plainspoken prose, with rhymes-lite. After all, the audience will draw their own mental pictures of the life told through a frothy score, comic bounce, and sonorous echoes with the aid of supertitles and Palmer Hefferan’s bracing sound design.

A woman’s decision to bring a child into this world, or not, is no monolithic experience. Whatever the real Pirnot’s private journey may be in the present post-Roe era, I Became We dramatizes her evolution from ambivalence (childfree with husband) to differently shaped ambivalence (maybe open to unpredictability).

Despite her childfree status, she can’t shake off an existential FOMO when a BBQ hostess gets her to hold a squirming baby. The awkwardness then melts into the otherworldly tenderness of clutching a delicate human being, captured by the song “She So Small." Soloist Kathryn McCreary performs it with a crystalline soprano.

Mundane and grand incidents alike remind Pirnot that biological time is of the essence. They include watching a Jimmy Kimmel Live! segment of men misidentifying female reproductive organs on an anatomical chart, Googling how ovaries shrink with age, attending her mother’s retirement party, and crying over an airport-streamed Adam Sandler movie that inspires a bait-and-switch payoff.

Pirnot and Coen’s work is aplenty with sustaining choruses, but after many sonic sprints through life chapters, the novelty wears thin, and even the lovely score threatens to be mawkish. An eventual house hunt, posed as a climatic race, is blunted in the score’s breeziness. Isn’t life — even for Pirnot’s avatar, who can afford to house hunt — too cluttered to be as streamlined as Coen’s score?

Sarah Benson’s direction alsos feel boxed within Pirnot’s formal and script constraints. While it’s understandable that Pirnot insists on rapt attention to the music, with no distractions, the ensemble — unimpeachable in lung capacity but rote on their risers — can test patience. In context, I Became We refers to Pirnot and her husband, but in a meta sense, the title can suggest how her storytelling requires trust in her collaborators to play with and animate the material.

But just when I Became We tips into exhaustion, enter the secret star and 17th choir member: child soloist Paige Nesle, of the NYC Children’s Choir, representing an adult Pirnot reverting into childlike vulnerability in the aching “I Don’t Know” (performed with mezzo Helen Karloski). There’s a moment where Nesle shuts her eyes after she blunders a note but soldiers on with her mousy lilt. Whether in error or calculated acting, this moment touches a big theme of I Became We: There's no choice but to move on from the imperfect.

I Became We summary

To have or not to have a child: That is the question playwright Mona Pirnot faced and perhaps still is facing. Via 33 classically-styled choral songs sung by a 16-person choir, her autofictional I Became We chronicles an unnamed and unseen narrator, Pirnot's avatar, embodied by said choir as she hits her mid-30s and faces societal, interpersonal, and existential pressure to have a child with her husband.

What to expect at I Became We

In Atlantic Theater Company’s Linda Gross Theater — appropriately, a former church with risers, acoustic-aiding boards, and warm lighting (here designed by Tuce Yasak) — the 16 choir members are attired in default concert black, not strictly uniform in design (costumes are by Louisa Thompson and Gylanni Carrington) with music binders.

As ordered by Pirnot’s script, each vocalist does not naturalistically imitate a distinct character — sopranos, altos, tenors, and baritones can represent Mona and other characters all at once — but intend to elicit emotion-based conversations and thoughts. The choral format and Benson’s direction can show their limits here, especially when two singers depict a couple’s conversation facing each other, yet awash among the black-attired bodies.

I Became We runs 70 minutes with no intermission and is performed with supertitles. Sometimes, these can prematurely reveal punchlines and twists too soon by displaying whole sentences, but I Became We’s supertitles often display words, repetitions, or sentence fragments, letting the humor land better at points. Audience members seated close to the front might have sightline issues with the supertitles.

What audiences are saying about I Became We

As of writing, I Became We has a 92% audience approval score, based on 32 reviews, on Show-Score. Audiences have also shared mixed to positive reviews on other forums like Mezzanine and Reddit, with many sharing how much it surprised them.

• Mezzanine user Jane called the show “an oratorio more or less which I didn't expect but i really enjoyed it. intimate, very moving and had some funny moments but most didn't resonate with me (in all fairness i am most definitely i am most definitely not in the intended demographic for this at all).”
• “I liked this so, so much more than I expected to. It's incredibly funny - there were many laugh-out-loud moments - and deeply touching, and the music is great. It probably hits less if you're not a late 30s/ early 40s woman who's close to your mom, but I am and it hit hard.” - Reddit user u/sarapod07
• Show-Score user Elisa 9119 called the production “truly groundbreaking work” and praised the caliber of the singing.
• “This was so much different than I expected, but the story was shockingly moving and entertaining. I left wanting to hug my partner and mom.” - Show-Score user Xavier 6294
• “I really liked the show. I thought the use of the choir was really was appropriate because it's such a human condition to have this generalized anxiety or fear of missing out on something. The other theme of not being present and looking towards the future or wanting something that was intangible was also extremely relatable and then another reason why the choir worked.” - My +1 at the show

Read more audience reviews of I Became We on Show-Score.

Who should see I Became We

• Fans of unorthodox theatrical forms, including in Mona Pirnot’s other plays like I’m Assuming You Know David Greenspan and I Love You So Much I Could Die, would be interested in Pirnot’s experimentation here.
• Choir kids and fans of choral theatre, like Heather Christian’s Oratorio for Living Things and Animal Wisdom, will find themselves moved by I Became We.
• I Became We makes for a moving parent-child night out as Pirnot meditates on family and motherhood.

Learn more about I Became We off Broadway

The choral artform has given the Off-Broadway scene plenty of sonic highs lately. The form of I Became We might limit it, but it’s a moving 70 minutes on the uncertainties that can orbit a life.

Learn more and get I Became We tickets on New York Theatre Guide. I Became We is at Atlantic Theater Company's Linda Gross Theater through November 15.

Photo credit: I Became We off Broadway. (Photos by Ahron R. Foster)