Irony of Irony: PEOPLE, PLACES & THINGS at ST. ANN’S WAREHOUSE
credit: Johan Persson
The American Premiere of Duncan Macmillan’s PEOPLE, PLACES & THINGS at St. Ann’s Warehouse is a thought piece and a gutsy gorgeous thing to behold. It is also darkly comic. The play opens meta-theatrically, in mid-sentence.
And we aren’t the audience we thought we were. We find ourselves well within another play. Act IV, the concluding pages of Chekhov’s frequently-produced The Seagull.
The heroine/anti-heroine Emma of PEOPLE, PLACES & THINGS is playing Chekhov’s actress Nina to harrowing and comic effect. This as we shift our expectations to accommodate an excerpt from this late 19th century work. It is clear that Emma (a magnificent Denise Gough) is drunk on stage. Her posture suggests a marionette with a couple of strings cut. Emma has hit rock bottom during this performance. As she fumbles to remember her lines, she begins to talk less in the character of Nina and more as herself. The modes of reality between the role and the performer begin to blur.
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