Content note: reference to recent parental death, onstage urination, references to COVID, reference to police brutality, imprisonment, gunshots
I talk a lot about conversation plays, plays where the idea is to stimulate conversation, to ask more questions than it answers. "Monumental Travesties" I think falls firmly into this category.
Chase is a performance artist and in his most recent act, he has severed Lincoln's head from the statue in Lincoln Park. The action takes place entirely in Chase and his wife Angela's living room. Their neighbor Adam appears having discovered a Lincoln head in his rosebushes. The action takes place over a single evening. There are discussions of grief, allyship, treaties, a moment where Chase uses Adam to recreate the poses found in the statue to discuss if the statue is demoralizing or embarrassing. There is talk about code switching, and so, so, many lies that the three have or choose to tell.
The performances are wonderful. I had seen Louis E. Davis and Jonathan Feuer previously at Mosaic in "Charm". (Renee Elizabeth Wilson grew up here, and has been in several local performance, so me not having seen her before is a failure on my part.) The set design was amazing.
There is no intermission which I think suits the bonkers pace of things.
Also, worth noting, because I love it in all it's forms, there is amnesia. Yup, they make time for amnesia and it's not even the wildest thing that happens.
