[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review off The Lincoln Stedman Theater and ELATE’s production of This Is Where We Came In.
Written by Sir Alan Ayckbourn in 1990, This is Where We Came In is a children’s play. However, the themes of servitude and control, having the strength to remember who you are and the darkness of dogma are as adult as they are universal.
ELATE’s production of this hugely prolific Ayckbourn, with 90 plays and counting, is an interesting choice to make in these times of the infallible and the egoist vs the collective survival of us all. But what at first might seem like a light against the darkness story is much more layered than that. It’s about taking control of your own destiny. Making your own story more important than the one you are given by others. It’s about creativity, humanity, and how kindness can change everything.
The play begins with a lone player, or actor, on the stage. Unsure of why he is there, he is soon joined by a woman. She knows why she is there, to perform a story, but doesn’t know him, although he feels familiar. As they talk more players arrive. They are all friends and acknowledge him in the same way as the woman. Not really sure why they feel comfortable with him but with no memory of ever knowing him.
The storytellers arrive shortly after a strange mechanical humanoid, Sam the sound, whose role in every story is to create sound effect and nuance and it takes it’s place at the side of the stage. The storytellers are old, all three of them and grumpy and a little mean. They seem to relish their position, their superiority over the players and the truth of that rings unsurprisingly clear. What a world we live in.
The stories unfold and the troubles begin. The man tries to remember; he tries to take part and the struggle between belonging and the urge to rebel gets more and more pronounced.
How do we change our parameters? How do we risk everything to become someone? How can we take control when we are not even sure what it is that we want? Is it easier to be told who we are and where we belong and with whom? Probably. But that isn’t living, is it?
In the end, most of the struggle is with ourselves, of course, and writing our own stories is a lot harder than we could ever imagine. But the writing, the struggle and the journey are everything.
This is a weird and wonderful play, and it requires total commitment and complete trust in, of all things, the story. The players of the ELATE Theatre Group are always deeply engaged in every play I have seen at this lovely theatre. They provoke, they stretch themselves and challenge the audience and entertain, and in doing so they move the humanist needle just a little with every show.
I am very grateful that they take the time and the far from unnoticed effort to choose work with purpose and meaning as well as enormous entertainment value.
This Is Where We Came In is the perfect play for our times. Fascinating, compelling, strange and truthful.
It gives these fine actors something to sink their teeth into. A reason, if you will, and a bloody good one at that! Bravo to ELATE and bravo to the actors and of course, the brilliant Alan Ayckbourn for never taking the easy path.
This is Where We Came In will be ELATE’s 115th production!!!
Tickets:
https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/elate-1094460696/this-is-where-we-came-in
Where:
6020 Radford Ave, North Hollywood
When:
August 14-30, Fridays and Saturdays at 8PM and Sundays at 2PM