Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Target Margin Theater’s ONE NIGHT is a nine-hour act of heroic theatrical storytelling and wonderment

• By drediman
• May 31, 2022
• No Comments

Over the years, I’ve participated in a number of durational theatrical experiences. Having experienced Taylor Mac’s A 24-Decade History of Popular Music at St. Ann’s Warehouse (24 hours), Nat Randall and Anna Breckon’s The Second Woman at BAM (24 hours), Punchdrunk’s virtual presentation of The Third Day (12 hours), The Hypocrites’ All Our Tragic at The Den Theatre in Chicago (12 hours), and other such time-consuming events, I’m certainly no stranger to immersive, uber-long theatrical presentations. Clocking in just under double digit hours in length is Target Margin Theater’s One Night, the final performance of which I attended this past weekend at The Doxsee in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood.

The nine-hour production is a heroic piece of sustained storytelling and is performed, astonishingly, without any breaks or intermissions (audience members are encouraged to disengage whenever suits them). The event is the culmination of Target Margin’s five-year investigation of oral storytelling vis-à-vis The One Thousand and One Nights; it also triumphantly marks the theater company’s 30th anniversary. The main bulk of the show – perhaps five hours of the experience – is framed by Scheherazade’s survival via oral storytelling in which well-known stories like “Ali Baba” and “Aladdin” are shared alongside less popular (but no less enchanting) tales like “Julnar of the Sea”. The evening also weaves in the company’s acclaimed 2018 staging of Pay No Attention to the Girl (the show that inaugurated the company’s flexible Sunset Park home), as well the tender, pandemic-era Now Go and Act Accordingly. Additionally, the production goes the extra mile in expounding on the history of oral storytelling itself.

What keeps the show from succumbing to numbing monotony is the diverse modes of storytelling it employs (in addition to traditional storytelling, music, improvisation, mime, melodrama, and other means are used), all of which are invariably compelling thanks to the tireless and consistently inspired work of the seven-member acting ensemble, as well as the team of devoted stagehands and technicians working alongside them. Although Target Margin Artistic Director David Herskovits largely keeps things scrappy and playful, the day unfolds tautly and compellingly thanks to the rich underlying research that informs the storytelling and the insistence on keeping perspectives shifting for the audience. Also varying the day are the coursed vegetarian food and drinks (the tofu grain bowl was particularly tasty), which are seamlessly incorporated in the ongoing storytelling.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

ONE NIGHT
Off-Broadway, Play
Target Margin Theater at The Doxsee
Approximately 9 hours (without an intermission)
Closed