“American (tele)visions,” at NYTW79, is the rare recent show whose use of—and constant references to—video feels absolutely necessary to its story.
There are lots of screens onstage these days. The intrusion of video into drama can be a nod to the visual culture of surveillance, or to the uncanny fantasy that our private and public lives are somehow being secretly filmed for a later wide release. Often, though, the gesture is underdeveloped, a wan attempt at multimedia art, perhaps the result of insecurity about the ever-increasing dominance of TV.
Besides his family, Alejandro has left behind his not so secret boyfriend, Jesse. One actor, the sweetly compelling Clew, plays both boys: Alejandro in memory and Jesse in the fluidly moving present. That twinning adds to the play’s air of sad mystery. It also introduces a tough theme—the possibility of replacement.
The actors, directed by Rubén Polendo, each seem to be in a slightly different play, which is fine when the characters are addressing the audience, but—with the heartening exception of Erica and Jeremy—less so when they’re shoved into fitful interaction with one another. Even that flaw, though, might be understood as an outflow of grief: it makes us natives of our own interior visions and strangers in the outside world.
Before Amal arrived, there was a group of African drummers and dancers, exciting the crowd to welcome her. We were in the plaza outside the State Office Building, on 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard. I could tell she was coming before I saw her—suddenly the whole crowd shifted toward the northern end of the barren plaza, hailing her with shouts and signs and, yes, also screens.
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