Photos by Joan Marcus
Light
Shining in Buckinghamshire
By Ron Cohen
In Caryl Churchill’s Light
Shining in Buckinghamshire, we’re taken back to
England
in the middle of the 17th Century. It’s a country torn with strife,
civil war is afoot, another war is in the making (this one against Ireland);
long-term institutions are threatened and overturned, land is up for grabs, the
citizenry is mired in poverty, the right to vote is debated, and religion is
dangerously interwoven with politics.
Yep, some of
it sounds like us, doesn’t it? And certainly a lot of the words in this early
work by Churchill, one of
England
’s most
prominent and most unpredictable playwrights, resonate sharply. At the same time, there are certainly a lot
of words to deal with.
The play,
first produced in
England
in 1976, can make
for quite a heavyweight session for unsuspecting audiences. Characters come on
stage without context and scenes jump in seemingly random fashion from one
event to another, as Churchill delivers a patchwork panorama of the time and
its issues.
Nevertheless,
there are some exceptionally compelling moments in the two hours and 40 minutes
of this revival by New York Theatre Workshop. Those moments are thanks in large
part to the sympathetic and energized direction of Rachel Chavkin and her cast of six deeply committed, deeply talented actors.
In one
harrowing sequence, a wretchedly impoverished woman, enacted with heart-rending
anguish by Evelyn Spahr, is coaxed into giving up her
infant because she has no milk within her for feeding. Then, in one of Chavkin’s impressive coups de théâtre, Spahr transforms into a butcher railing at an unseen customer who is attempting to
buy meat.
Evelyn Spahr
“No meat for you this week,” the butcher declares in mounting
ferocity. “Not this year. You’ve had your lifetime’s meat. All of you… You’ve
had their meat that can’t buy any meat… You cram yourselves with their children’s
meat. You cram yourselves with their dead child ren.”
If that
makes you uncomfortable, it’s undoubtedly Churchill’s intention. And Chavkin’s, too.
And more power to the theater-makers with the potency to do that.
In a
quieter but still commanding vein, Rob Campbell portrays a landowner whose
humanitarian instincts toward his tenants are subtly undermined by the
all-too-transparent obsequiousness of his local vicar, played by Matthew
Jeffers.
More fine
work comes from Gregg Mozgala and Mikéah Ernest Jennings as various soldiers with horrific descriptions of the
battlefield, and Vinie Burrows, whose roles include a
deeply-etched portrayal of a vagrant woman preacher and a rather phlegmatic
Oliver Cromwell, the leader of the rebellion.
There’s
also some richly harmonized choral singing (Orion Stephanie Johnstone
contributed original music and music direction), while the moody lighting of
Isabella
Byrd on the expansive open set designed by Riccardo Hernández provides welcome
assistance in heightening the script’s elliptical sense of drama. Mikaal Sulaiman’s sound design
also lifts the dramatic stakes, while Toni-Leslie’s James’ costumes effectively
incorporate contemporary touches into the period garb.
With a cast
listing of 25 characters, each of the actors takes on multiple characters in
stalwart fashion. But the quick switches can sometimes lead to confusion as to
who’s who and what’s going on.
Gregg Mozgala
In the
extended sequence that closes the play’s first half, Cromwell and various
factions from his army and civilian life gather to debate provisions for a new
constitution. It’s drawn from historical records of the event, known as the
Putney Debates. Along with its verbosity, pertinent ideas are thrown into the
pot, such as property rights, conscription, the very meaning of freedom. But
it’s a hard slog to get through; a little more information as to who the
characters were instead of all the disputation might have helped in pulling the
audience into the proceedings.
A panel
hanging upstage provides open captioning of the complete play as it is being
spoken. It’s of course a thoughtful service for the hearing-impaired, but if
you try to use it just to keep up with Churchill’s flood of words, you may soon
find yourself warring between the actors and the surtitles.
This is the
second time New York Theatre Workshop has mounted the play. It produced the
American premiere in 1991. And in its effort to engage you as well, another
service provided by NYTW for bewildered audiences is a flyer in the program
giving an extremely concise description of the historical events figuring in
the play. It carries a headline “Some Context.” If only Churchill had seen fit
to do this within her script, the Light
Shining in Buckinghamshire might have been happily brighter.
Off-Broadway
play
Playing at
New York Theatre Workshop
79 East 4th Street
212-460-5475
www.nytw.org
Playing
until June 3
