Light Shining in Buckinghamshire

I

I can only comment on the first act of Caryl Churchill’s problematic 1976 play about mid-17th century England because I fled the theater at intermission. After Rachel Chavkin’s great success directing Hadestown at New York Theatre Workshop, she was apparently given free reign to choose her next project there. Unfortunately for us, she chose Churchill’s long, preachy, basically undramatic treatment of the political-religious background of the English Civil War. The choice is especially surprising because NYTW already presented the play once before in 1991. In the first act, the intrepid cast of six — Vinie Burrows, Rob Campbell, Matthew Jeffers, Mikéah Ernest Jennings, Gregg Mozgala and Evelyn Spahr — portray a variety of characters whose lives illustrate the enormous social injustices of the era. The act concludes with a reenactment of key moments of the Putney Debates, an unsuccessful attempt to agree on a more equitable constitution. The ongoing struggle for greater social justice is certainly still relevant for us today, but perhaps one has to be British to fully appreciate this play. For me it was sheer tedium. Director Chavkin is not at the top of her game. The production dresses the characters in period-appropriate costumes (by Toni-Leslie James) but conspicuously mixes in such modern props as plastic shopping bags, a cellphone, a Coke bottle and a cardboard coffee cup. For no particular reason, the actors speak mostly through microphones. An electric signboard above the spare set (by Riccardo Hernandez) provides useful information to introduce each scene but remains on with distracting open captioning of the actors’ every word. And words there are aplenty. I could not abide the thought of sitting through another 1 1/2 hours of them. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes including intermission.