The company (Photo: Ben Arons)
Oratorio for Living Things
By Deirdre Donovan
Signature Theatre launches its newest residency with Heather Christian’s Oratorio for Living Things, an immersive, in-the-round explosion of sound and spirit that bridges science, memory, and cosmic wonder. Under the direction of Lee Sunday Evans, the celebrated ensemble—many returning from the Ars Nova premiere—creates a theatrical universe where the human and the celestial hum in the same breath.
In this 90-minute piece, audiences are invited not simply to watch but to take part in a contemporary oratorio performed by six instrumentalists and twelve singers. At first blush, the form might sound intimidating, but Christian demystifies it in her program note, offering a clear—and warmly human—point of entry. As she writes, “An oratorio is a religious-adjacent music service that is, at its core, a rumination on a subject or theme the composer has decided is ‘holy.’ Tonight, this holy thing is Time.”
Christian’s definition becomes the audience’s compass as they enter the Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre, reconfigured into an intimate, in-the-round arena that transforms the oratorio into a fully immersive, lived experience.
Christian subdivides Time into three interconnected scales: quantum time, in which we encounter the molecular architecture of life; human time, shaped by memory (harvested here from anonymous voicemails); and cosmic time, concerned with the vast, violent, and unknowable workings of the universe. A third of Oratorio is in Latin, and whether one grasps every literal meaning matters far less than allowing the piece to wash over you on its own sui generis terms.
Divya Maus, Fraser Campbell, Ashley Perez Flanagan (Photo: Ben Arons)
As the work expands across these temporal planes, it also invites audiences to gaze into the intricacies of evolution—moving from simple molecules to complex DNA strands to the human beings who must navigate the wonders and absurdities of daily existence. Christian captures those mundane absurdities in one extended litany, drawn from anonymous emails she received: “Three and a half hours throwing away unopened mail /Forty minutes putting lids on Tupperware /18 days looking for a bathroom /One year in the ‘Bag Drop’ line /Eleven days trying to remember why you came into the room /Four hours changing pants /Two and a half years being too cold /Four years and eleven days being too hot…”
Yet beyond the playful humor lie profound meditations. One of the most striking is Christian’s analogy between the membrane of a cell and the walls of a theater—both vessels for live performance, one on the molecular scale and the other on the communal. It’s a resonant comparison, reminding us that science and art often chime with one another, each offering a space where life gathers, pulses, and transforms.
Music director Ben Moss guides the oratorio with a deft hand, shaping a soundscape that moves between choral passages and solo arias. He elevates the quotidian and revivifies the classical, balancing plainchant, gospel, blues, and electronica in a work that refuses to be confined to any single musical lineage.
Evans’s direction is seamless, giving each singer and instrumentalist a moment to surface from the collective and helping the audience track the shifting focus, aided by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew’s subtle lighting. The loose, graceful costumes by Márion Talán de la Rosa provide a soft visual counterpoint to the score’s dynamism.
Barrie Lobo McLain (Photo: Ben Arons)
There’s no traditional narrative, yet Oratorio is peppered with personal anecdotes that help tether its cosmological scope to everyday experience. One of the most charming concerns an older brother who eagerly awaits his mother’s return from the hospital with a newborn sibling—imagining an instant companion, only to be stunned by the tiny, helpless infant placed in his arms. The moment becomes his bittersweet confrontation with reality, the letting-go of a childhood fantasy. As he recalls:
“I think that she’s gonna come home with a friend for me /And so I’m thinking about what we’ll do and when we’ll do it and /You know what kind of games that we’ll play and /What I’ll tell this brother /This fully formed person /Who’s about to come home with my mother /Who is obligated to be my friend.”
Oratorio for Living Things ultimately feels less like a performance and more like a shared act of noticing—of tuning our attention to the fleeting, funny, sacred, and strange rhythms that make up a human life. Christian and her collaborators invite us to sit inside time rather than chase it, to hear its pulse in a chorus of voices and feel its presence in the charged space between strangers gathered in the dark. It’s a rare work of theater that manages to be both cosmic in scope and tender in detail, and Signature Theatre’s revival honors that duality with clarity, wonder, and a luminous sense of care.
At Signature Theatre
480 W. 42nd. St.
Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission.
Through November 22, 2025
