I came into How High We Go in the Dark with two very distinct biases against it.
The very American bias that anything free can’t be -that- good (I received a preview copy in exchange for my review), and the indignation that someone thought this thing was in any way comparable to Cloud Atlas. However it may have landed for you, Cloud Atlas is incredibly well-constructed and there’s just no way Sequoia Nagamatsu lands that sort of achievement in a debut.
My wife and I spend a notable amount of time talking about ethics in performance. What is ethical to ask of an audience? Of a performer? What effect is the moment you create for them putting out into the world? Often in our discussion we use Martin McDonagh as shorthand for work that puts audiences and performers through the ringer. It’s important that discussions of abstractions not hinge on work being bad, so we use McDonagh because the work is excellent. I performed the role of Katurian in The Pillowman while we were in Austin. She saw the effect on me that the emotional grind of spending 3-4 hours a night living as Katurian had. The effect on audiences is one of laughing through creeping dread.The play is dark and intense and there are lots of companies that choose to do it because it’s dark and intense. The extremely abbreviated
