New Stage Theatre Company presents, “In the Common Hour,” now playing. This review will go over this play’s plot and then consider some ideas around this caper.
“Common Hour,” is a series of short stories loosely based on author Italo Calvino. Thus, in one story a cowboy tries to use a gun to shoot at a tornado, and in another story, a dictator confronts his subjects to hold on to power. Still a third anecdote sees a modern-day soldier argue with a 3D printer as if it were a witch’s cauldron.
If audience members do not like one scene, there is at least another one coming up in a few minutes. At any given time, a material subjective character interacts with a more ghostly authoritative and ethereal demon. The production communicates this in so many ways, not least of which is a psychedelic and phantasmagoric projection, changing the scenery every so often. The anthology even includes some happy endings among the fantasy and science fiction scenarios.
I thought this was a great little production. I liked the costumes, I liked the choreography and the good old fashioned dramaturgy and directing. I thought the symbolism and the archetypes were cool. Some things I didn’t like include the use of Wonder Woman in one of the sketches. How much of the veracity, be it plausible or Immanent, shall we believe in these amplified and augmented everyday interactions? Have we escaped from Slavoj Zizek’s, “Wisdom Trap,” whereupon wisdom and wise platitudes can be used to justify any moral claim whatsoever?