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Maybe its just me, but it feels like 2020 could have gone better?
Something about it just felt … off.
Yet somehow the theater managed to be excellent, even as the world slid away.
And finally, a laurel must also go to every artist who chosenotto make something this year.
We honor all that silence and study.
And in that light, you saw a new form being born.
Even months later, its memory still triggers aftershocks.
Other Theater of War Productions readings have been strong, butOedipusproved the gold standard.
Back in the spring, it was a story about rotten leadership and public health.
But the play, based roughly on MelvillesBilly Budd, is built with exacting care.
It was the sergeants play.
Both bitesize plays were bitter … but delicious.
[Buffs nails.]
It was a show, but also an education, as Song chatted about her craft while demonstrating it.
How does a playwright build a world?
How much of stage realism is just a certain level of complexity?
Will Sim Masha have her dang baby?
(Answers: while laughing; a lot; no.)
The audience experienced the thrill of creation, even though we were just kibitzing.
The performances were also all stupendous, and I dream that this production might return after the shutdown.
Our year of big-box retailer super-dependence has only sharpened its relevance.
In the rubble of theatrical convention, though, stands something illuminating, humanist, courageous, tragic.
Scholars will write dissertations on it; someday, it will reorder our understanding of performance.
But in the meantime, it stayed busy shattering the present world, one reeling audience at a time.
