Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Summerworks continues with Gab Reisman’s SPINDLE SHUTTLE NEEDLE, a topsy-turvy parable that seems inspired by the pandemic

• By drediman
• June 11, 2022
• No Comments

This past week at The Wild Project, I caught Gab Reisman’s Spindle Shuttle Needle, the second offering of Clubbed Thumb’s 25th edition of its invaluable Summerworks series (the mini-festival of three new works began with Trish Harnetiaux’s California and continues with Angela Hanks’s Bodies they Ritual). Set during the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, Ms. Reisman’s play depicts a group of women who spin tales in a cottage as a war rages outside. When the war ends, the women bravely emerge to find a brave new world, awkwardly exploring capitalist opportunities and the possibilities of their newfound feminism.

In many ways, the play feels inspired by the recent pandemic lockdown, during which we’ve all had to entertain and engage ourselves to keep our sanity. Now that the world is on the fast track to reopening, we – like the women in the play – are faced with the challenge of re-connecting with the world both socially and economically. Stylistically, Ms. Reisman opts for an absurdist approach that alludes to the surreality of our own recent and current experiences with the pandemic. If anything, the play’s freewheeling quality calls to mind the untethered imagination of works like Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth. The play is also a parable about the importance of storytelling in the face of a world that’s increasingly incomprehensible and bizarre.

The Summerworks production has been directed by the accomplished Tamilla Woodard, who gives the piece a polished staging (the inspired scenic and costume designs are by Frank J. Olivia and Dina El-Aziz, respectively) that appropriately leans in on Ms. Reisman’s surreal and playful text. She’s assembled a crack all-female ensemble cast, including the likes of fantastic stalwart stage actors Mia Katigbak and Tina Benko. Individually, they bring their own quirky energy to the mix. Collectively, they work expertly as an ensemble, vividly animating the play’s topsy-turvy world.

RECOMMENDED

SPINDLE SHUTTLE NEEDLE
Off-Broadway, Play
Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks at the wild project
1 hour, 25 minutes (without an intermission)
Through June 16