Susan Granger’s review of “No One Is Forgotten” (Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre)
Between the sweltering heat and electrical outages, it wasn’t easy to get to the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater at 224 Waverly Place – and this hour and 30 minute (no intermission) play, inspired by the kidnappings and executions of high-profile journalists like Daniel Pearl and Jamal Khashoggi, sounds daunting. Thankfully, it was worth every moment.
The audience sits on four sides of a dirty, claustrophobic, rectangular concrete cell, where two women, wearing similarly shapeless cotton shifts, are held in captivity.
Imaginative Beng (Renata Friedman), who “knows a lot about a lot,” is a lesbian with a child; practical Lali (Sarah Nina Hayon) has a husband. But all that has been taken away from them. They’ve lost their freedom. They don’t know when they were captured, or how long they’ve been held. And the audience doesn’t know whether they’re journalists or aid workers or activists.
So they pass the time by eating porridge, exercising, talking and playing ‘I Spy.’ When water is scarce, they drink their own urine. Their desperation is constant.
What’s pivotal is the concept that anyone can be taken hostage at any time. A country is only as free as its press – and our press is in great danger. Playwright/director Winter Miller (“In Darfur”) should know. She worked as a research assistant for Nicholas Kristof at The New York Times. And on each seat, there is a flyer from Amnesty International
Difficult to categorize, “No One is Forgotten” is ambiguous, absurdist and abstract yet, at times, disarmingly intense and precise – with existentialism reminiscent of “Waiting for Godot.”
Ms. Miller notes, “I write parts for women because I want to see them on-stage. I want them to have jobs. I also write parts for women who are middle-aged and up. There’s this incredible talent pool that gets shut out between mother and grandmother roles.”
Yet, in the script, Ms. Miller suggests that the play can also be staged with two men or a man and a woman.
And kudos to Meredith Ries’s sparse set design, Rhys Roffey’s dingy costumes, Stacey Derosier’s deliberately harsh lighting and Tyler Kieffer’s subtle sound.
“No One Is Forgotten” plays at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, through July 27 under the auspices of Winter Miller’s Community Theater.