Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Ive never made anything like this before, Walsh notes in the shows program.
Its a brand new form for me … Its not for me to say what it is really.
Its its own thing.
But here, its manifestation feels both vague and surprisingly prosaic.
Theres notnothingunderneath them, but theres not enough.
Gilmore plays a young woman called Grace who has taken refuge in an outdoor handball court.
All this might be enough for a song cycle alone.
Shes been thrown over by a loverdid he beat her?
Did she have a miscarriage?
Has she been living on the streets, forced into sex work?
We dont quite know.
If that sounds heartless, well, Im frustrated, too.
I know I should feel for Grace, and believe me, Id like to.
Buttrauma narrativesperhaps the reigning form of our agedont get a pass based on sorrow and disturbance alone.
They get to be surprised.
Crucially, they get to joke.
(There is no laughter inSafe House,for Grace or for the audience.)
It never grants her much release; nor does it offer us much revelation.
Dangerous, too, when swallowed.
In its more concentrated form,Mahineratormaintained that sense of visceral grip.
It took us in hand and squeezed.
Spread across a larger ensemble, with more side alleys and self-amusing authorial digressions,The Barbariansis more diffuse.
In layer one, we meet our narrator, identified only by a folded desk placard declaring WITNESS.
Is it the play that were watching?
Sort of, but its also often grander, an impossible Cecil B. DeMille-ian extravaganza.
Woulja take a look at that!
These flights of fancy mark some ofThe Barbarians zingiest moments.
In them, Lieblich runs an extreme test of the theatrical idea of words as creative action.
In everyday life, only certain events qualify asspeech acts: coronations, weddings, swearings-in.
But on the stage, isnt speech always making something happen, calling something into being?
Shakespeare told us that if the actors talk of horses, then horses are there.
And if Mellor tells us the stage has become an ice rink, hasnt it?
Isnt it pretty to think so?
For example, war.
It may just make you imagine thousands and thousands of dead.
Bob Dole, actually.
Speech becomes act, and the message explodes on impact, with disastrous effects.
Intellectually, we can hear whats happening, and lord knows its bleak.
But theatrically, were never quite slammed against the wall.
The plays sense of menace and urgency remains more speech than act.
Without sufficient ballast, its word balloons threaten to float charmingly away.
Safe Houseis at St. Anns Warehouse through March 2.The Barbariansis at La MaMa through March 2.
