“You OK?”
“I mean, what even is OK anymore.”
In Source Material’s “In These Uncertain Times,” two characters, Annelise and James, type messages on Zoom, and the exchange feels familiar; the pandemic has changed even small talk so that questions like “How are you?” and “You OK?” are suddenly loaded. And even a positive answer comes with qualifiers.
The production, devised by Source Material for Zoom and directed by Samantha Shay, takes a uniquely postmodern approach to talking about grief and isolation in quarantine. And while the play eloquently uses disparate styles of storytelling to serve moving moments, it too often feels conceptually incomplete.
Six actors (James Cowan, Miles Hartfelder, Annelise Lawson, Stephanie Regina, Raven Scott and Grace Tiso) meet for a Zoom hangout, alternatively chatting about what the loss of theater means to them, getting hammered and telling corny dad jokes. Trapped in their homes, they’re despondent to the point of self-destructive. They question their identities, thrash and drink hard liquor until one of them appears back at the screen with blood dripping down his face. In each scene there’s tension, an imminent threat of injury.
With our days of seemingly endless screen time, and with theater now coming to us via laptops and tablets, productions have increasingly had to consider the question of verisimilitude. Some playwrights have written toward the pandemic, creating content that mines the present moment. And then there’s the form. Should the play’s format and structure try to re-create the models used in live theater, before lockdown — or should it completely break the mold?
Shay opts for the latter. It’s a brave choice, and the right one: The show never forgets that it was born in a time when art can’t be produced or received in the same way. In fact, it takes a meta approach; in the first scene, one actor instructs another to “do the speech,” and he delivers the preshow announcement. The performers aren’t presented as fictional characters but as simply the actors themselves. So where in the production does the play end and the real world begin?
There’s an underlying question about how the theater industry’s been upended by the pandemic, but the second half of the play loses the thread, which isn’t as compelling as the play’s more general musings on loss, love and grief.
“Uncertain Times” takes a disjointed, almost manic, approach; it’s plotless, more intuitive in its choices, which include stretches of heightened dialogue and a rhapsodic monologue delivered with a video showing the sunset and the sea.
Between scenes, we see a phone screen, scrolling through an Instagram feed littered with real posts about the state of the world — memes and videos, some funny, some sad, from celebrities and the everyday masses. One section, an audio-only bit about the relationship of grief to love, positing that the two are siblings, even symbiotic, is exquisite, especially when followed by the private Zoom chat between Annelise and James. “Do you think love will be able to exist in the new world?” James asks, and it’s the question that cracks the play open.
Or at least it would have. “Uncertain Times” reads like a lyrical essay, poetic, emotive and fluid in its temperament and tone, but it’s hesitant to give itself the space it needs to expand on its most penetrating moments.
In the frenzied scenes showing the characters spiraling out in different ways — one compulsively snacks, munching on Kettle Chips and Sour Patch Kids; one has a mental breakdown; more than one gets dangerously, stupidly drunk — the overall sense of these people’s disconnection is clear, but it’s used most effectively when juxtaposed with scenes that are more individual in their focus and restrained and introspective in their mood. The private chat about love, one character’s reflective soliloquy about suffering and resilience — these pieces provide necessary texture and specificity while holding true to the flexible spirit of the production.
Because “Uncertain Times” resists narrative and character development, it risks using some of its performers as set pieces — unnecessary but as a way to fill out the screen. It also straddles the line between wonderfully theatrical romantic sequences and flowery Hallmark Channel sentimentality. The writing sports a dose of both, but more often than not the music charges in to overwhelm scenes that need only a subtle touch.
From beginning to end, the play is shot through with a prescient sense of uncertainty. Its characters are a mess, insecure and floundering, and the production’s form itself is accordingly incohesive. I can see an extended version of this play that keeps the poetry and the variety and digs deeper into its characters’ discrete responses to this sense of disconnection and grief. After all, things may be uncertain but at least our theater shouldn’t have to be.
In These Uncertain Times
Aug. 1, 7 p.m. EST; Aug. 2, 2 p.m. EST; sourcematerialcollective.com.
Source: Theater - nytimes.com
