BRIEF ENCOUNTER @ the ROUNDABOUT THEATRE(originated in London, extended run on Broadway)
This production dances the line between film and theatre, using the cinematic medium to break laws of physics onstage and blowing theatrical expectations to pieces. Characters in life and onstage speak with static characters on the screen. The screen not only presents a physical barrier between the exciting, explicit affairs depicted on scene, but characters move freely from the world of the living stage to the black and white screen.
The New York Times knows what’s up:
“…the laws of gravity are destined to be suspended. And two seemingly sensible, earthbound people will be, quite literally, swept off their feet and into the stars.
Ms. Rice’s production ingeniously uses distancing devices to bring us paradoxically closer to the intensity at its center. The show begins with Alec and Laura in the audience, watching a film and erupting into a quarrel that sends Laura onto the stage, where she steps, through a louvered screen, into the movie. (She then appears on film in her own prosaic living room, where her husband waits for her.) An invitation has been issued, the same that every movie makes, to walk into an alternative universe.
This production excavates that universe even as it recreates it.
And finally, this quote from the play seems apropos: “The stars can change in their courses, the universe go up in flames and the world crash around us, but we’ll always love going to the pictures and getting lost in the dark.”
…I have to see this play.
