An Official (Scott Shepherd), a Lawyer (Elizabeth Marvel), and an Analyst (Jennifer Mogbock), otherwise nameless, in Tim Blake Nelson’s quasi-Orwellian And Then We Were No More.
This is pretty high-profile stuff for La MaMa, and a far more elaborate production than their norm: A major stage performer and a noted film actor in a new play by a well-known movie and TV actor. And Then We Were No More, by Tim Blake Nelson, thrusts the audience into a depressing future that may not be far off—but one that feels more familiar, what with the surfeit of apocalyptic and otherwise downbeat futuristic dramas flooding the marketplace, than Nelson likely intended.
He and director Mark Wing-Davey are aiming for something, perhaps, quasi-Orwellian. The setting is a “complex,” a severely controlled environment outside a big city, where functionaries do their business without complaint, and preferably without introspection. Whoever controls it, the Official (Scott Shepherd) seems representative of its ruthless efficiency. He’s interviewing a Lawyer (Elizabeth Marvel) for an unpleasant task: arguing for an Inmate (Elizabeth Yeoman) who’s getting the death penalty no matter what, but the means of death—painless or not—hasn’t been determined. The argument will be before a jury of hundreds, the judicial process having been drastically revised, and the verdict will be whatever the state wants.
The Lawyer tries to coax a comprehensible story out of the Inmate (Elizabeth Yeoman).
The Inmate confessed to murdering her husband, mother, and two children. Currently in solitary in a facility where prisoners are routinely tortured in the name of “research,” her communicative abilities have been reduced to isolated fragments of words. (Unfortunately, Nelson renders her virtually incomprehensible—“this time drink blood so it goes till shake from fever electric with murder”—when one would like to understand her history and motives better.) The Official seems all but soulless, dishing out factoids in that robotic way so popular in futuristic fiction. The Lawyer retains more humanity: She feels for her client and argues forcefully for her, believing that “justice has come to mean only retribution, never mercy or rectitude”—one of several Nelson pronouncements that feel, intentionally no doubt, disturbingly current.
After interviewing the Inmate, the Lawyer is observed by the Official and the Analyst (Jennifer Mogbock), an unsmiling functionary who runs prisons, has something to do with the death machine, and whose presence the Lawyer resents. And then comes the hearing, one of several overlong scenes, where the prefabricated verdict arrives and the execution is carried out, a truly frightening first act curtain.
Divulging anything about the much shorter second act would constitute a spoiler, but suffice it to say a year has passed, much has changed, and the Official and the Analyst, so mechanical previously, are exhibiting signs of human emotion. They’re joined by the Lawyer, who marches off to a fate you might see coming, of the “First they came for the Communists” variety.
The Inmate’s terror is truly frightening. Photos by Bronwen Sharp.
If this all sounds rather dry, it is. Nelson seems to be in Shaw territory, commenting on the relentlessness of the state and its effects on characters an audience can identify with. But these characters haven’t the requisite personality, having been stripped down largely to automatons. Marvel, with the most to play, makes the strongest impression, pinpointing the Lawyer’s outrage, crafty way with an argument, and humanity noticeably lacking in everyone else. Shepherd’s Official can’t do much more than reel out exposition, and Mogbock is at first actively annoying, though that’s more the character than the performance, and she’s more compelling as the Analyst relaxes. Yeoman, saddled with all those impenetrable sentence fragments, doesn’t make the Inmate understandable, but does convey an air of vulnerability and panic.
David Meyer’s scenic design has a lot of moving parts, from glass walls to sterile offices to orange coils surrounding that intimidating death chamber, and he’s helped by Reza Behjat’s harsh lighting and Marina Draghici’s costumes, especially that scary formless getup for the Inmate. Henry Wilson and Will Curry, on sound design and music, provide the provocative buzzes and squeaks of that repressive complex, and reassuring bird noises when the Official, Lawyer, and Analyst leave it. And Wing-Davey, who directed Nelson in Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest way back when, keeps the ominousness of the surroundings on suitably high pitch.
And Then We Were No More is a worthy couple of hours, then, its script shot through with relevant ideas and literate Shavian arguments on the function of the state and the dangers of letting it dominate our existences. But these arguments have been argued before, more succinctly and with greater panache.
And Then We Were No More plays through Nov. 2 at La MaMa (66 E. 4th St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; matinees are at 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. For tickets and more information, visit lamama.org.
Playwright: Tim Blake Nelson
Director: Mark Wing-Davey
Scenic Design: David Meyer
Costume Design: Marina Draghici
Lighting Design: Reza Behjat
Composer and Sound Design: Henry Nelson and Will Curry
