When a piece of art is described as “ambitious,” a “but” often follows. Example: Tim Blake Nelson’s “And Then We Were No More” is ambitious, but doesn’t work as engaging theater.
Nelson is best known as a fine character actor, with a charismatic hangdog mien — you may remember him as Delmar, one of the escaped convicts in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” This fall sees him occupying several front lines. He has a supporting role in the new noir series “The Lowdown” and a starring one in the upcoming boxing drama “Bang Bang”; he is also publishing a novel, “Superhero,” in December.
With “And Then We Were No More” (at La MaMa through Nov. 2), Nelson returns to the stage but as a playwright, more specifically a playwright of ideas. This you can tell just by looking at the program, where the characters are identified not by proper names but by capitalized occupations. The central trio is made up of An Official (Scott Shepherd, who is also in “The Lowdown”), A Lawyer (Elizabeth Marvel) and The Inmate (Elizabeth Yeoman). The first runs a detention facility, and the second is hired to defend the third.
Actually, scratch that. There is no defense to speak of since the inmate, who killed her husband, two children and mother, is about to be executed “without pain.” Now she has changed her mind about how she will be put to death, and the lawyer must assist her. It does not help that the inmate speaks in herky-jerky “poetic” fragments that are only marginally more understandable than Lucky’s cryptic speech in “Waiting for Godot.” It’s a type of language that requires virtuoso-level chops to wield effectively.
As a sucker for dystopian settings, I was initially excited to see that “And Then We Were No More,” which is directed by Mark Wing-Davey, takes place in an unspecified future, or maybe an alternate present where society took a “1984” turn (David Meyer’s set nicely suggests an analog aesthetic). Violent criminality is largely under control, so much so that the inmate alone accounted for a third of the murders in the entire city for the year. A mysterious machine pretty much vaporizes those who have been sentenced to death, and its operation is entrusted, naturally, to The Machinist (Henry Stram). Nelson is open about the influence of the Kafka short story “In the Penal Colony,” in which characters are also identified by their occupation and executions are done with an “apparatus.”
But the world-building is both specific and too vague here. We know society is ever more controlling — “I was relieved to learn that I voted last month,” the lawyer dryly says — but how is it organized? Little is made from the fact that, in a logical extension of our own reality, parts or all of the justice system appear to have been privatized, a move represented by An Analyst (Jennifer Mogbock).
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The post ‘And Then We Were No More’ Review: Not Quite Kafka appeared first on New York Times.
