"...this three-hour production, does feel as if we’re reliving a year’s worth of material. At least the variety in Parks’s script keeps things unpredictable enough to hold our attention."
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" 'Plays for the Plague Year' is a show about all of us, as evidenced by the casting of each performer as many people...Even beyond gathering in person or singing in unison or taking a collective breath, that's the way, the show reminds us, to really be a community."
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"...we are reminded how a very dark juncture also brought with it some tender silver linings, for those of us lucky enough to find them."
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"In this disjointed world of songs and scenes, the pandemic is a collection of individual moments and experiences that unfold without analysis or interpretation. If you plan to bear witness to 'Plays for the Plague Year,' I advise a similar approach."
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While the playlets seem too slight to have much dramatic weight as they are mainly about one minute long, they do have a cumulative effect summing up a year that was like no other in recent memory. Often the scenes feel like they want to go on and continue, but Parks keeps them short. Periodically, we have a one sentence scene telling how many people have died from Covid as of that date. Beginning on March 13, 2020, the first full day of the shutdown, the playlets continue until April 13, 2021, a year and a month from when Parks started. An electronic sign above the stage states the date of each scene and its name which includes such titles as “Home,” “Broadway Is Closed,” “The City at 7 PM,” “Who’s Gonna Pay For This?,” and “Hiatus 4 Months: Holding It Together Together.”
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"The play, despite its bluesy music and its attempts to memorialize joys and triumphs along with sorrows and its witty costumes, never steps more than a whisper from grief and anger. It reminds us at every turn how quickly 2020 outstripped all of our ability to process the world."
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It might feel jarring initially that “Plays for the Plague Year” is being presented at a cabaret…But presenting this year-in-review as a revue proves surprisingly effective – entertaining, evocative, provocative. The informality and intimacy make the production feel at times like a gathering where together we are reliving the memories. At its best, “Plays for the Plague year” offers the opportunity for a sense of community and, for some, of catharsis.
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“ 'Plays for the Plague Year' leaves you in a state of contradiction that may feel familiar to all pandemic survivors: wanting more — and a whole lot less."
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