The Story by Tracy Scott Wilson reviewed in TheTimes


The Story by Tracy Scott Wilson opens at the Papp


Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Phylicia Rashad in Tracey Scott Wilson's play about a newsroom

Bruce Weber reviews The Story , a new play by Tracy Scott Wilson very favorably in The Times. It is a story about journalistic ethics, set in the offices of a newspaper in a large city. It sounds like it may be based loosely on the Janet Cook fiasco at the Washington Post, because it involves a black woman who claims to have evidence that a young woman has committed murder. The reporter is played by Erika Alexander, and the editor is played by Phylicia Rashad (who I once saw perform the Witch in Into the Woods ). The major conflict is intergenerational - between the editor and the reporter.
One of the things that interests me the most about this play, is the style it is played in. Here is a quote from the review:

The play is written in rapid-fire, overlapping scenes, the kind of rat-a-tat-tat pace that conforms to the ever-quickening rhythms of a news cycle and suggests that a lot of things are happening at once. The director, Loretta Greco, handles this boldly, without giving in to an impulse to spoon-feed the audience. Indeed, the play opens in some confusion, with exposition sprayed from the stage in almost scattershot fashion, with scenes at different times and places being enacted at once.

It takes a little while for the storytelling method to clarify itself, but the first 20 minutes of the play teach us how to watch it.

This interests me because more and more, strict cause and effect story lines are looking like the past - this kind of writing may well be the future of dramatic narrative.
Production information - also from The Times - follows:

THE STORY

By Tracey Scott Wilson; directed by Loretta Greco; sets by Robert Brill; costumes by Emilio Sosa; lighting by James Vermeulen; additional music and sound by Robert Kaplowitz; production stage manager, Buzz Cohen; managing director, Michael Hurst; associate producers, Peter DuBois and Steven Tabakin; director of production, Joe Levy. Presented by the Public Theater, George C. Wolfe, producer; Mara Manus, executive director, in association with the Long Wharf Theater, Gordon Edelstein, artistic director; Michael Stotts, managing director. At the Anspacher Theater, in the Joseph Papp Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place, East Village.

WITH: Erika Alexander (Yvonne), Stephen Kunken (Jeff/Tim Dunn), Phylicia Rashad (Pat), Damon Gupton (Neil), Sarah Grace Wilson (Jessica Dunn), Michelle Hurst (Detective/Ensemble), Kalimi Baxter (Carla/Ensemble), Susan Kelechi Watson (Reporter/Ensemble) and Tammi Clayton (Latisha).

Posted: Thu - December 11, 2003 at 01:06 PM          

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