Welcome to the debut production of New Cosmopolitan Ensemble in New York!
The performance you’re about to witness is the culmination of several months of
exploration, conversations, and general hard work undertaken by members of this
company. I’m grateful you decided to share this moment with us.
New Cosmopolitan Ensemble came to Edgar & Annabel by a circuitous route - the best kind, if you ask me - the kind of rabbit trail that nothing other than unconscious
intuition could be responsible for. I have a hyper-fixation on contemporary British
playwrights, especially those (e.g., Sam Holcroft, Tom Basden, James Fritz) who are
acclaimed in the UK, but haven’t received much attention elsewhere. I also approach theater-making from a cosmopolitan spirit, more interested in the larger patterns and themes found across theater cultures than in localized stories. This spring, I asked various members of the ensemble to read over a handful of plays that captured this spirit. Of the plays we considered for our debut production, Edgar & Annabel captured everyone’s imaginations unanimously.
Sam Holcroft’s work often questions our perceptions of reality. A surface banality gives way to an unsettling urge to look over your shoulder. You think you’re watching one thing, and it turns out you’re watching something else. In the world of Edgar & Annabel, a high-stakes game for political power is being played, yet Holcroft deliberately obfuscates the ideologies of the opposing parties. Instead, she focuses your attention on the humanity of her characters, even as they have consigned their humanity to a political movement. These characters may profess to be politically motivated, but they are always acting out of deeply personal human needs.
Sam Holcroft has long been fascinated by both theatrical form and human behavior,
twin fascinations contextualized by an autism diagnosis several years after Edgar &
Annabel was written. Holcroft said in the Guardian last year, “I watched how people
behaved and studied it like a science. ... It felt like everyone else got a rulebook that I didn’t....Most of my plays have scripts, have rules, have plays with plays, and are about how we play act in life.” Her experience is echoed in my own recent autism diagnosis. I’m so grateful to have connected with Holcroft’s work; I find such
affirmation in it.
I was sad to hear that Sam Holcroft’s husband, the writer Al Blyth, died in July of this year. We send our condolences to Holcroft and her family in the wake of such a loss.
I am so thankful for the members of New Cosmopolitan Ensemble, who have each
found a way to build this show together. I have to credit ensemble member Savannah Deering for challenging me to “rip the band-aid off” with this debut production. Thank you all for being here for this moment in time. I look forward to many more.
- Ryan Hartley
