Off-Broadway: “Oratorio for Living Things”
A music-theater deluge of sonic waves and self-perception
Photo of the ensemble by Ben Arons.
To witness Heather Christian’s Oratorio for Living Things is to suspend time, to live in the liminal bated breath of a lifted record needle that is slowly, but inevitably on its way to touchdown.
The much-lauded “must-see” of the current New York season is at its best a self-defined “ritual” exploration of the creation and history of existence, told through the chosen medium of mostly Latin-language music (an apt choice considering the centuries of human association of this music with spiritual and religious practice, innately tied to the big question of how, and why, are we living beings). The piece doesn’t set out to answer but rather ask, invoking a gentle spiritual self-reflection more than overt self-flagellation or dictation. To cram the evening into a “music-theater” gloss is to rob it of the mysticism that gives it power; the ensemble is less performative-character and more performative-shaman or worship leader, leading the audience plummeting through their sermon guised in the bare sheen of non-descript everyman uniformity.
Reading the libretto (published in partnership with Broadway Licensing) handed to you upon entrance proves a fantastical intellectual experience in and of itself (I waited until needing to excavate thoughts for this review, however my audience neighbors utilized it to follow along, I do not know to what extent it was successful or retractive.) The libretto is a visual cacophony, as perfect a transliteration between written and aural experiences as humanly possible that captures the shape of the overlapping and swirling and pelting of language that happens in the performance, with intentional scansion and dramatic layouts on the pages wherein words truly take their place as an actor among the performers.
The experience of not understanding language is one of blissful absorption; soaking in words as they fall on your ears is your only choice, as minimal design choices exacerbate this meditative state rather than distract. The emphasis on language, on words, exemplifies the strength of Oratorio being the perfect marriage of the dual nature of a play’s identity: being able to exist simultaneously as a written and bodied art.
In performance, however, there is more chaos than calm in the actual execution of this idea. I wanted to swim in the deluge of their words, and at times felt we were drowning in the relentless onslaught of sonic waves. It’s when you could catch a wave—an intelligible phrase reaches through the cacophony, or you lock eyes with one of the ensemble-- that the euphoria of the piece is revealed to you. It felt akin to sharing in a secret in those moments at a childhood sleepover, you’re just happy to be there and then unknowingly encounter a five second breath of a moment, a single slip of a conversation, that you’ll hold onto forever in a hazy out-of-body reflection that accidentally informs your self-perception the rest of your life. The evening feels like an exercise in self-perception theory after all, wherein we’re observing these living beings orate molecular history in our faces, with nowhere and no spectacle to escape or distract from anything other than the confrontation of “where do I fit into this urgency?”
Despite the epilogue—the only moment broken into spoken dialogue—describing how humanity is but one tiny fraction of a second in the grand calendar of the existence of living things, I felt that the music overwhelming us with “people’s problems” is what most impacted or stuck with me, an inevitable result of these moments being the only bursts of English erupting amongst the Latin in expressive incidents of crescendoed overlap:
three and a half hours throwing away unopened mail
forty minutes putting lids on tupperware
18 days looking for a bathroom
One year in the “Bag Drop” line
Eleven days trying to remember why you came into the room
four hours changing pants
two and a half years being too cold
four years and eleven days being too hot
On the staging— From the moment you walk into the deliciously cramped grand jury-style scenic design by Kristen Robinson, you know you are about to preside over a collective gathering—you have no choice but to stare at your fellow audience members while the cast cascades up and down the adjoining steps. While the notion of spiritual practices and music may conjure up images of angelic choirs disconnected on heavenly highs, disembodied from any tangible reality for mortal understanding, here these voices find their strength in being grounded. Lee Sunday Evans’ poignant direction places emphasis on the embodiment of the show’s abstract themes, in the physicalizing staging of the 18-person ensemble surrounding and stomping and strutting around you, demanding your attention at every angle.
The cast move like particles with inertia and intention; they form a wall around us, or stand at attention to a soloist, or form various thought clusters urging alternately to each other and us around a connective-tissued theme (longing, regret, I half expected a “did I leave my hair straightener plugged in?”).
Oratorio for Living Things exists in interesting harmony between intellectualism and music performance. The emphasis on ensemble moving as one cohesive aural and physical entity takes on eerie other-worldly tension, as if they’ve built a well-oiled human machine Liu Cixin would be proud of that we’re watching come together in grand conclusion. In reading the libretto post-performance, the humanist self-reflection I was doing while watching gave way to a more other-worldly sheen in reading; auteur Heather Christian blends the scientific with fantastical in her word choices (“memory harvest,” “time at the cosmic scale / violence,” “collisions”) that adds new contemplation to my experience surrounding the sung Latin. The juxtaposition of Latin and English translations in these multiple layers in both the written and performed space this piece occupies, succeeds as a tool of purposeful alienation, ultimately creating a sensory symphony of superb significance.
Oratorio for Living Things runs through May 15 at Ars Nova @Greenwich House. For tickets and more information, visit www.arsnovanyc.com/oratorio.
Photo by Ben Arons of Dito van Reigersberg, Barrie Lobo McLain.
Production credits
Ars Nova presents Oratorio for Living Things now running through May 15, 2022, at Ars Nova @Greenwich House, located at 27 Barrow Street in Manhattan.
Composed by Heather Christian and directed by Lee Sunday Evans.
The 18-member ensemble cast for Oratorio for Living Things includes Johnny Butler, Kirstyn Cae Ballard, Jane Cardona, Sean Donovan, Carla Duren, Clérida Eltimé, Ashley Pérez Flanagan, Brian Flores, Odetta Hartman, Quentin Oliver Lee, Angel Lozada, Divya Maus, Barrie Lobo McLain, Ben Moss, John Murchison, Onyie Nwachukwu, Dito van Reigersberg, and Peter Wise.
The creative team includes Ben Moss (Music Direction), Kristen Robinson (Scenic Design), Márion Talán de la Rosa (Costume Design), Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew (Lighting Design), Nick Kourtides (Sound Design), Greg Taubman (Latin Consultant & Translator), Jo Fernandez (Production Stage Manager), Kelsey Vivian (Assistant Stage Manager), and Henry Russell Bergstein, CSA (Casting Director). Oratorio for Living Things is produced in association with Rosalind Productions Inc.
The running time is 90 minutes with no intermission. Tickets, starting at $35, are currently on sale at www.arsnovanyc.com/oratorio.