We Should Meet in Air (review)

 

Spoilers ahoy!

You know, Covid actually has helped create (and/or encourage) new forms of live theatre.  Not worth the lives lost or institutions disrupted much less the theatre companies ruined, but still something positive.  Case in point--the format used for We Should Meet in Air, an immersive one woman show that takes the form of a phone call.

Stepy Kamei (full disclosure, a friend of mine) created and performs this piece, which in essence takes an extremely simple notion and makes it one of the most powerful theatrical experiences I've ever felt.  The notion is that I, the audience member, have called the great American poet Sylvia Plath on  her birthday in October 6, 1962.  This was her thirtieth birthday, and not long after her poet husband Ted Hughes had left her for a younger woman.  In the wake of these events, Plath began to write a tiny avalanche of extremely powerful poems, those for whom she is mostly remembered today, including "Daddy," "The Woman is Perfected," and (on this birthday, which definitely comes up) "Arial."  In fact, this last is the title of the posthumous book of poetry which came out in 1965.

There are a lot of things I'd like to say about this piece of theatre.  One is simply praise for how it is set up, and not least for Kamei's eerie recreation of Plath's voice (I've heard her voice in recordings many times).  I felt somehow I had become a genuine acquaintance of this person, keeping her company and talking about her art, her life, dreams, the searing disappointment/pain of her husband's adultery.  More, it even felt as if I were genuinely helping her finish a poem, the way my own conversations with friends sometimes leads to revelations about how something needs to proceed.  The flat absurdity of it--I was three when Plath committed suicide--vanished altogether.  We were there, just talking, and in that talk I felt a piece of some one's life bleeding into my own.  I actually felt changed.

Not sure if I can give higher praise than that.

We Should Meet in Air plays Thursdays through Sundays until April 30, 2022, at various times the link will show.  The conversation lasts roughly half an hour, and honestly I was left wanting more, yet also aware in some quite tangible way this was not really possible, in the way a real conversation goes.  More, the fact the lovely lady with whom I was chatting would die/had died hit me at the end.  I felt a bit like crying.