Four Deeply Humane Short Pieces From a Pioneering Playwright, Caryl Churchill, Are Having Their U.S. Premiere at the Public Theater

Few living playwrights have inspired as much admiration or debate as Caryl Churchill. A true pioneer in bringing contemporary women’s challenges and concerns to the stage, Ms. Churchill won acclaim in the late 1970s and early ’80s with taut, mesmerizing works such as “Cloud Nine” and “Top Girls”; an esteemed English critic, Michael Billington, once wrote that the latter “sent me out of the theater convinced that this is the best British play ever from a woman dramatist” — an observation that would no doubt be judged sexist today.Ms. Churchill gained some renewed attention last year after her short play, “Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza,” was adapted for the screen. Written during the Gaza war of 2008-09, the piece drew rather more mixed notices on its premiere, spawning charges of antisemitism: In an article in the Atlantic titled “The Royal Court Theatre’s Blood Libel,” Jeffrey Goldberg accused the playwright of “the mainstreaming of the worst anti-Jewish stereotypes.” While Ms. Churchill’s plays have seldom been the subject of such controversy, they’ve generated much discussion, and thought, about the uses and abuses of power even as they’ve increasingly embraced surrealism. This is certainly true of the crisply entertaining, deeply humane short pieces now having their U.S. premiere at the Public Theater under a collective title, “Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp.”Three of these plays were staged together as part of a quartet first presented at the Royal Court in 2019. In lieu of “What If If Only,” that lineup featured “Bluebeard,” touted as Ms. Churchill’s contribution to the #MeToo movement; fully titled “Bluebeard’s Friends,” it follows a group of women as they gather to eat and drink and chat about a buddy who, like the folk legend, murdered numerous wives. Deirdre O’Connell in ‘Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp.’ Joan MarcusAlthough it would have no doubt been fascinating to see Ms. Churchill dig into this turf, “What If” raises compelling questions of its own, and director James Macdonald, who helmed the original compilation in London, and a superb cast help ensure that the plays are woven together seamlessly in their current formation. “Glass” opens the production with a group of young actors who assume shifting poses and characters as they converse. One identifies as a clock at one point, another as a plastic dog; we soon realize that the protagonist is a girl made of glass, one who is swathed protectively in bubble wrap whenever she leaves the house. “You’re the most beautiful. You’re the special one,” the dog tells her, but our heroine, played sensitively by Ayana Workman, longs to be something more than a lovely object. In “Kill,” we meet only one character, but she seems to represent an army of all-powerful gods — though as she confides at the outset, “We can’t do everything, we don’t exist, people make us up.”This questionable deity is represented by a duly treasured stage veteran, Deirdre O’Connell, who drips piss and vinegar as she sits draped on a cloud hanging center stage. Miriam Buether’s set design for “What If” is even more striking, positioning a table and two chairs against a backdrop of blazing white. Only one chair is occupied, by a young man described in the script simply as “someone on their own.”This someone is revealed to be in a deep stage of mourning, conveyed with aching authenticity in Sathya Sridharan’s performance. As other characters gradually enter, the play, which Ms. Churchill wrote during the pandemic, becomes a reflection on our connection and responsibility not only to the people around us, but to future generations.“Imp” is the longest and most naturalistic entry, and also the most affecting. Ms. O’Connell and the similarly estimable John Ellison Conlee are cast as Dot and Jimmy, two cousins approaching their golden years in the same humble residence, thrown together by what appears to be a mix of fortune and bad choices. Jimmy is a runner, but Dot never leaves her chair in their living room; it’s as if she believes that attempting forward movement of any kind would be futile.Yet if Dot has forsaken dreams, she still clings to one rather fantastical notion that comes to light after a niece, Niamh, arrives from Ireland and meets Rob, a struggling young man who has been visiting Dot and Jimmy. Respectively played by a radiant Adelind Horan and a more quietly endearing Japhet Balaban, Niamh and Rob find their own paths and, in the process, bring warmth and meaning to the older folks — with possible spiritual assistance from an unlikely source.Circus performers Junru Wang, an extraordinary acrobat, and Maddox Morfit-Tighe, a charming juggler, appear between plays, lending extra sparkle and whimsy, but Ms. Churchill’s writing and the performances in “Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp.” cast a spell on their own.

Four Deeply Humane Short Pieces From a Pioneering Playwright, Caryl Churchill, Are Having Their U.S. Premiere at the Public Theater

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