Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp
Metaphor rides high in the four one-act offerings thematically threaded by British playwright Caryl Churchill in Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp. The suite of plays is currently featured at The Public Theater until May 11. Directed by James Macdonald, Churchill’s most recent collection integrates poetry, surrealism and “mundane reality” with a twist to represent the precariousness of our psyches in an incomprehensible world populated by the humorous and the horrible simultaneously.
Glass
Glass is a fairy-tale-like playlet that opens with a lighted platform amidst darkness (scenic design by Miriam Buether). We discover it’s a mantelpiece with objects upon it. The protagonist is a girl of transparent glass (Ayana Workman). According to the stage directions, “There should be no attempt to make the glass girl look as if she is made of glass. She looks like people look.” We meet her with others who are her jealous rivals (an antique clock, a plastic red dog, a vase). Though the “lass girl doesn’t seem to care to compete, the others humorously swipe at each other about who is the most useful, beautiful or valuable.
All look like people, suggesting a conceit. One interpretation might be that objectified humans come to believe in their own “grand” objectification. Other humans, aware of themselves, are transparently fragile, which can result in tragedy. Though Churchill’s meaning is opaque, the playwright adds layers. When the glass girl is with schoolgirls, who persecute her and make her cry, her pain is visible both inside and out.
Her vulnerability attracts a boy (Japhet Balaban), who becomes her friend and confidante. He whispers a story about his life with his father since he was seven. Though his whispers are not audible, we imagine the worst. Still, we are shocked when the glass girl explains what happens to him, which has a devastating impact on her.
Interlude
The theme of fragility suggested in Glass is continued as an ironic reversal in Gods after circus performer Junru Wang presents stunning acrobatic maneuvers on handstand canes. The interlude with lyrical music provides time to reflect on aspects of life which require balance that only comes with training and practice as Junru Wang exhibits.
Gods
In Gods, Churchill presents the Gods of Greek and Roman mythology as the vulnerable ones. They unleashed the Furies to punish brutal humankind to no avail, then recalled them because humans never tire of bloodthirsty murders, wars, and rampages. Deirdre O’Connell embodies all of the gods. She sits suspended mid-stage on a fluffy white cloud surrounded by darkness, haranguing the audience in a stream-of-consciousness rant about the bloodletting, familial murders, intrigues, wars, and cannibalism.
The gods admit they encouraged the brutality with curses, and liked watching the results. But now they don’t like it, and furthermore, wash their hands of the killing, because they don’t even exist. That is to say, humans attribute their own monstrous behavior to the gods instead of accepting responsibility for their own heinous acts.
By the conclusion the gods scream and plead, “He kills his son for the gods to eat and we say no don’t do that it’s enough we don’t like it now don’t do it we say stop please.” The gods’ point is made. The audience agrees. The maniacal being, a human creation, haplessly protests its creators, knowing the bloodshed and murders will continue. If the gods had ultimate control would humanity be peaceable? Churchill’s irony is devastating.
Interlude
Circus performer Maddox Morfit-Tighe juggles with clubs and performs acrobatic movements in the second interlude. The interludes feature the circus performers in the “pit” in front of the proscenium with dramatic effects from Isabella Byrd’s lighting design. Churchill’s suggestion of humankind as performers who juggle and balance themselves in the tragicomical circle of life continues the theme of vulnerability and fragility.
What If If Only
In What If If Only a husband’s (Sathya Sridharan) grief over his wife’s death is so intense that his desire touches the spiritual realm, and the possibility of her return seems imminent when a being shows up. However, his suffering has evoked a ghost of “the dead future.” The being brings the horrific understanding that his wife is forever gone. What is left are the illimitable future possibilities. But when the being suggests that he try to make a possibility happen, the husband claims he doesn’t know how. His grief has cut off his ability to even conceive of a future without his wife.
No matter, a child of the future (Ruby Blaut) shows up. Though he ignores the child, she affirms she is going to happen. As we daily ignore our vulnerable, mortal flesh to live, the future will happen, until we die. Churchill frames life as hope with possibilities that we must let happen.
Imp
After the intermission Macdonald presents Churchill’s uncharacteristic, humorously domestic one-act, Imp. This last play continues the thematic threads but buries them in the ordinary and humorous. The significance of the title manifests well into the play after we learn the back story of two cousins who live together, Dot (O’Connell) and Jimmy (John Ellison Conlee), and their two visitors, niece Niamh (Adelind Horan), from Ireland, and local homeless man Rob (Japhet Balaban). During Rob’s visit with Jimmy, since Rob doesn’t want to discuss any personal details about himself or the possibility of a relationship forming between himself and Niamh, Jimmy decides to share a family secret. Dot believes she has captured an imp and trapped it in a wine bottle capped with a cork.
Though Jimmy claims not to believe the imp exists, at Bob’s suggestion, he uncorks the bottle. In the next six scenes we watch to see if anything changes in the lives of these individuals. We become especially appalled when Dot wishes evil on Rob via the imp because Niamh and Rob split up. We discover the imp’s power by the conclusion. However, Dot’s powerlessness and vulnerability in projecting her own malevolent wishes through a mythic creation to avenge a loved one is pure Churchill.
A Lesson for Us Today
The revelation of wickedness burrowing deep in human hearts chills. The homely environment where cousins sit and discuss gossipy nothings speaks of the mundane. Yet into this ordinary place and time the supernatural erupts in Dot’s consciousness. Indeed, we realize that people activate myths and express their desires through it. Though beliefs may comfort, on another level they may entrap and even destroy. Is there a lesson here in considering how some gain comfort believing in wild conspiracy theories? To what extent do people use misinformation and fanciful stories as a stronghold against rational argument and scientific proof which discomfort them? Churchill’s Imp holds a lesson for us today.
The running time of Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp. is 2 hours 15 minutes with one intermission, through May 11 at the Public Theater.
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