Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Will Arbery’s deeply sensitive new play CORSICANA endeavors to dramatize the trauma of living

• By drediman
• July 3, 2022
• No Comments

Last night at Playwrights Horizons, I attended the Off-Broadway play Corsicana by Will Arbery, who was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2020 for his thought provoking Heroes of the Fourth Turning (which also premiered at Playwrights Horizons). Named after a nondescript Texas town where it takes place, Mr. Arbery’s latest depicts two half-siblings, Ginny and Christopher (the former has down syndrome), as they navigate life after the death of their shared biological mother. They’re aided by a longtime family friend (Justice) and her fragile artist friend (Lot), who also have their own issues to contend with.

In Corsicana, Mr. Arbery has written a sensitive, slow-burn of a play that’s admittedly not for everyone. Not much happens in the piece, and it’s unafraid to utilize pregnant longeurs to make its point. That being said, there’s a lot going on here if you have the patience to unpack it. At one point or another, the playwright untethers each of his characters, allowing them to take verbal flights of fancy, which often take tangents into supernatural and otherworldly realms that blur reality. These personal arias take us deep into the characters’ psyches, which they themselves seldom understand. Indeed, these journeys often frighteningly uncover more questions than answers about themselves and their relationships with each other. Although they’re connected by their unquestionable loyalty to each other – either through blood or friendship or romantic love – Mr. Arbery makes the point that life is an inherently individual experience, especially as experienced through one’s respective body. His play is also a meditation on the simultaneous facility and insufficiency of words to uncover and communicate what lies beneath.

Mr. Gold’s austere, decidedly chilly staging responds to the text with an unnervingly clear-eyed gaze. The resulting production is both unsettling and strangely consoling – although we’re alone, we’re all in this together. The performances from the quartet of actors – recent Tony-winner Deirdre O’Connell (Justice), Jamie Brewer (Ginny), Will Dagger (Christopher), and Harold Surratt (Lot) – are as exceptional as they are distinctive. Their collective performances weave a hauntingly beautiful and mysterious tapestry that boldly endeavors to dramatize the built-in trauma of living.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

CORSICANA
Off-Broadway, Play
Playwrights Horizons
2 hours, 20 minutes (with one intermission)
Through July 17