Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Streaming Diary: Henry Filloux-Bennett’s WHAT A CARVE UP!, Working Theatre’s SANCTUARY, and Natalie Margolin’s THE PARTY HOP

• By drediman
• November 30, 2020
• No Comments

Here’s are my thoughts on the recent crop of streaming adventures …

WHAT A CARVE UP!
Barn Theatre / Lawrence Batley Theatre / New Wolsey Theatre

First up was What a Carve Up! (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), Henry Filloux-Bennett’s virtual “stage” adaptation of Jonathan Coe’s 1994 novel of the same name about the perfect murder of six powerful, corrupt members of a fictitious British clan. This collaboration between the U.K.’s Barn, Lawrence Batley, and New Wolsey theatres brilliantly combines the classic whodunit scenario with an ingenious structure and pointed contemporary references, resulting in a remarkably smart and bitingly entertaining satire. Acted with wicked specificity and edited masterfully, the end product gels beautifully. All-in-all, it’s polished and compulsively watchable stuff. Although the project veers awfully close to television-land, I can see how Mr. Filloux-Bennett and director Tamara Harvey’s work could be realized one day as an exciting multimedia stage production (akin to Ivo van Hove’s dazzling staging of Network, which was seen on both sides of the pond).

SANCTUARY
Working Theatre

Yesterday, I streamed Sanctuary (RECOMMENDED), Working Theater’s “immersive soundwalk”. Created by Rachel Falcone and Michael Premo and directed by Rebecca Martinez, the piece is a meditation on the notions of home, flux, and community. The work also highlights the importance of spirituality, especially during times of uncertainty and woe (such as these). Sanctuary is essentially a free-flowing tapestry of interviews – with musical interludes sprinkled throughout – conducted with members of the congregation of St. John the Divine. Although the podcast unavoidably plays like an informercial for the mammoth Morningside Heights cathedral and strikes a tenuous connection between strolling about one’s neighborhood and our collective existential journey, its heart sits firmly in the right place. And in this age of COVID-19, I applaud any endeavor that gets people out of their homes and encourages safe engagement with the world around them.

THE PARTY HOP
Dramatists Play Service

Finally, we have the streamed reading of The Party Hop (RECOMMENDED), Natalie Margolin’s silly and light new comedy, which was written specifically to be virtually performed. Speculatively set on a Saturday night three years into the COVID-19 quarantine, the play depicts three high school girls as they attempt to navigate an evening of disparate social obligations via Zoom. In doing so, the piece amusingly envisions how our way of life could potentially evolve if the status quo of our current predicament were extended by a few years. Featuring an uncommonly starry cast (including performances by Ben Platt, Ashley Park, Noah Galvin, and an especially delicious turn by Catherine Cohen) in a multitude of broadly-written roles, the 45-minute play is not only a pleasant diversion, but also a gentle reminder that we are all inherently social creatures, lockdown or no lockdown.