Prologue Theatre: Recent Tragic Events

I do love a well written play.  Craig Wright's "Recent Tragic Events" about the day terrorists brought down the World Trade Center, blew a hole in the Pentagon, and attempted to destroy the Capitol, definitely qualifies.  I see a fair amount of new plays in the course of a season, and there's hardly anything worse than watching talented actors fumble through a mediocre play.  Often half-baked plays are big on concept, but short on character development, and too reliant on cliches to advance their plot line.  Recent Tragic Events has a lovely balance between the components and allows the actors to create truly interesting, well-rounded characters that create emotional bonds with the audience.  Bonds not dependent upon the charge setting.

In a nutshell, it is the evening of September 11, 2001.  A blind date is about to start in an apartment in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Waverly is about to meet Andrew for the first time, but she is also worried about her twin sister who lives in New York City.  Neither she nor her mother have been able to get a line into New York.  Enter her devil-may-care, mildly anti-social neighbor Ron and eventually his current friend with benefits, Nancy.  Everyone in their own way attempts to help Waverly make sense of her fears, and as the evening progresses enter Pizza, Beer, Vodka, Cards and Joyce Carol Oates.  From beginning to end a TV is playing in a corner of the stage with its screen turned away from the audience, but the audio soundtrack droning relentlessly on with the news of the day (the actual news of the day).  From the very first moment, Mr. Wright infuses certain conceits into the play that mollify to some degree the horror of that day out of what I can only assume is an act of grace for the audience.  Yet, it's never trivialized.

Everyone in the cast was completely new to me, although their bio's were full of impressive experience.  Each one managed to create characters that both annoyed and endeared themselves to me at various moments through the play--just like real people do.  You definitely got the impression that each also held their characters in the palm of their craft with great affection.

My view of the stage from the second row, too close to get the entire space in my phone's lens.

The theatre at Atlas Performing Arts Center (home of Mosaic Theatre) was set up to be very intimate with four rows and approximately 60 seats, 20 of which were occupied.  The set was the interior of Waverly's apartment.  Simple, but real feeling.  At the end the applause were robust and well deserved. 

On the way out I happened to encounter one of the founders of Prologue Theatre (a company only 3 years old with no permanent space so productions rotate around the city to other theatres where they can rent the space.)  I shook his hand and said, "You've created a good thing here.  Two for two."

He lit up and said, "Two for two?  I'll take that!"

Then he thanked me, and I added, "I look forward to seeing your summer production."

I wondered if he realized that I was also talking about Dog Sees God from this past fall when I said, 'two for two'... Hmmm.  Well, it made him happy.