Review: RECENT TRAGIC EVENTS at Third Rail Repertory Theatre

When bad things happen on a large scale, what can we as individuals actually do to make a difference? What is our sphere of influence? And how much control do we actually have over any of it? These are questions many of us have been asking ourselves lately (at least I have), and they lie at the heart of Craig Wright's RECENT TRAGIC EVENTS, now running at Third Rail Repertory Theatre.

This is the play that launched Third Rail in 2005, and it’s being performed in the same space (CoHo Theatre) where they staged it back then, directed by the same director (Scott Yarbrough). It's a beautifully full-circle choice for their 20th anniversary season. I wasn't there for that first production, but I can see why this play was chosen. It's exactly the kind of personal story with much bigger implications that the company has become known for.

The play’s weighty questions are grounded in the most ordinary of settings. We’re in Minnesota, it's September 12, 2001, and Waverly (Emily Eisele) is supposed to be going on a blind date with Andrew (Ben Tissell). She's not ready – not just in the getting-ready sense, but in every sense. She has spent the day compulsively trying to get through to her sister who attends fashion school in New York. Andrew arrives, nervously clutching a book (apparently, he’s been kept waiting before) and a bottle of cheap wine. 

Then Ron (Rolland Walsh) comes in, because that's what Ron does – he's the kind of neighbor who drinks your beer and meddles in your business, but who would also be the person you called to bail you out of jail in the middle of the night. As any hope of the official date happening flies out the window, they're joined by Ron's friend Nancy (Rose Proctor), and the evening becomes something none of them planned: a spontaneous community forming in real time.

Wright's genius (this is the second of his plays I’ve seen this year, and I left the production convinced that his work is always worth seeking out) is in how he balances the weight of tragedy with the absurdity of being human. The play is funny, sometimes veering toward the ridiculous, yet it never minimizes the very real grief and horror of 9/11. There's an intense debate about free will that could feel pedantic in lesser hands, but here it unfolds like the kind of impassioned discussion we all might have after playing a drinking game with friends who've suddenly become philosophers at midnight.

The performances are excellent. Eisele makes Waverly's barely-held-together anxiety palpable – you sense she could crack at any moment, and part of you hopes she will, if only to release some of that coiled energy. Tissell embodies Andrew's sweet, wishy-washiness perfectly: he has no idea what he's walked into, but, after a few fits and starts, he's committed to seeing it through. Walsh’s Ron is a modern-day hippie who vibrates on a different plane than everyone else. And Proctor's Nancy – well, watching her eat pizza is genuinely mesmerizing. The show is also theatrically inventive in ways I won't spoil, but trust me, it's fun! 

What struck me most, watching this play nearly a quarter-century after it premiered, is how urgently it speaks to this moment. The conversations these characters have about fate, free will, and geopolitics could have been written yesterday. We're living through our own string of recent tragic events, asking ourselves the same questions, feeling the same paralysis.

During the post-show talkback, Wright shared his take: If believing you have free will makes you kinder, believe it. If believing our actions are predetermined makes you kinder, believe that instead. It's the most pragmatic approach to the ancient question, and it captures what makes this play so moving – it's less interested in being right than in helping us be better to each other.

In a world that keeps handing us reasons to feel helpless, RECENT TRAGIC EVENTS reminds us that showing up – imperfectly, awkwardly, with no idea what we're doing – might be the most powerful thing we can do. In the middle of whatever this current moment in history will be called, that message feels like exactly what we need to hear.

RECENT TRAGIC EVENTS runs at CoHo Theatre through November 23. Details and tickets here.

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