Theater: The Irondale Center / 85 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11217
Synopsis:
Hailed by the New Yorker's John Lahr as "extraordinary", "bold", and "inventive", Sarah Ruhl's Passion Play takes us behind the scenes of three communities attempting to stage the death and resurrection of Christ. From Queen Elizabeth's England to Hitler's Germany to Reagan's America, Ruhl's exploration of devotion takes us on a humorous yet unsettling journey filled with lust, whimsy, and a lot of fish.
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May 13, 2010: Some roles can really get under an actor’s skin. Playing Hamlet would surely put you in an existential mood. Macbeth could bring out a guy’s paranoid streak, even without that fabled curse said to attend productions. But playing the son of God has got to be the trickiest assignment of all. Hanging up there on the cross every night — twice on matinee days! — could give a guy a serious persecution complex, no?
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May 13, 2010: It seems unfair to criticize a theatrical work for being too ambitious, but "Sarah Ruhl's Passion Play" fairly begs for it. This triptych of one-acts is stuffed with so many ideas and themes that it falls apart under its own weight.
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May 13, 2010: Let's just get the superlatives out of the way. "Sarah Ruhl's Passion Play" is the most exciting, stimulating, and thrilling piece of theater to hit New York since "Angels in America." Epic in scale, this three-hour-and-45-minute panorama is appropriately being presented by Epic Theatre Ensemble at the Irondale Center, a converted Sunday school in the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. Ruhl, who previously explored how cultural phenomena influence everyday lives in her "In the Next Room, or the vibrator play," here examines the ways faith and art interact with politics and personalities, as re-enactments of Christ's Passion change the destinies of the performers.
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May 13, 2010: Sarah Ruhl's excellent Passion Play, presented by Epic Theatre Ensemble at the Irondale Center, is nothing if not ambitious. Set in three different eras and locales, Mark Wing-Davey's beautifully realized production uses stagings of passion plays -- dramatic presentations of the story of Jesus Christ's trial, suffering, death, and resurrection -- to explore not only issues of spirituality, but also politics and more physical passions, as well.
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May 17, 2010: "Passion Play" is a new site-specific work that takes on the final days of Christ. David Cote, contributing critic from Time Out New York, filed the following review. Sarah Ruhl began "Passion Play" while still in college, and it shows the mark of an excited student bursting with ideas. The ambitious three-act epic spans four centuries, three countries and explores themes of power, theatricality and religious faith. Like an over-caffeinated all-nighter pulled by a promising student, it earns an "A" for effort.
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