All tagged Awoye Timpo
Two world premiere productions of new plays opened Off-Broadway last night, each offering their characters a reflection on their younger selves and their emotional development, conceptions of love, and visions for the future. This is a roundup look at Second Stage’s “Days of Rage” and the Vineyard Theatre’s “Good Grief” (Critic’s Pick!).
“The Revolving Cycles Truly and Steadily Roll’d” makes its imprint in explicitly displaying the tragedy of its titular “revolving cycles” of racism and indifference, and by viscerally depriving the audience of any disconnection between the world of the stage and the world of our lives. With terrific performances throughout, and trenchant treatment of a devastating story and situation, metatheatrical devices cloud its impact, which can be too clinical, but is nevertheless striking.
“The Homecoming Queen” by Ngozi Anyanwu is a mysterious and reconciliatory meditation on buried trauma, family history, and liberation into one’s true self through the story of a novelist returning to her native Nigeria to visit with her ailing father and confront ghosts from her past. Thematically taut but frustrating in its opacity, the play is a confident offering from an emerging playwright worth watching.
