Presenting… “End of Lines”!

To celebrate the First Irish Festival in New York City, five Irish artists each wrote thirty-minute plays expressing the images they have of the New York City subway system. These five plays make up the play “End of Lines”. Each written by different writers and performed by different actors, the plays in “End of Lines” not only shows the common thoughts about the New York City subway system but also the different lives of New Yorkers. The five plays put together can be described as a melting pot just like New York.

The first play “The House Keeper”, written by Morna Regan, teaches a simple lesson of money cannot buy happiness through the characters of a desperate mother that just got fired and a rich old lady. Both characters have problems of their own and it turns out the poor mother has a happier life than the rich old lady. The plot twist at the end of the story gives the audience a nice laugh and there are a few jokes in between but the general idea of the story is how everyone has hardships. The subway is not specifically mentioned in the play but the theme is that the subway leads people to all their different lives. The rich old lady, played by Jacqueline Knapp, and the poor mother that has been laid off because of immigration, played by Paula Nance, are both characters we can see in New York.

Kimberly Herbert Gregory is absolutely amazing in the play “Evangeline Elsewhere” by Pat Kinevane. The play is a one-woman show and Gregory plays the character Evangeline. Evangeline loses her baby when a group of thieves stab her in the train station when she is pregnant. Gregory shows the real emotions of a mother who had to agree to the death of the baby because he was on life support and would not survive.Evangeline is in a mental hospital and Gregory is able to perfectly go back and forth between when Evangeline is happy because she is on medication and when the reality hits her and she is in pain.

A scene from "Evangeline Elsewhere" Photo by JohnQuilty

 
The third play, “The Mission” actually takes place in the subway station. The main female character Lucia, played by Brianne Berkson, is assaulted by two boys that are from out of town. Berkson shows a very stereotypical Hispanic teen that lives in New York. The scenes were very comic until the buys assaulted Lucia and the play ends without a conclusion. This play received the most laughs and the cast members are young but their acting skills are the highlight of the play.

The fourth play “Shaving the Pickle”, written by Abbie Spallen, is about the futuristic New York. The heat is forcing everyone to move away but the government is not allowing the citizens to leave. People must have paper proving who they are and everything is in chaos, yet the subways are still air-conditioned.  “Shaving the Pickle” has a very clever plot in which the female character pretends to be the mother of a civil servant to get papers and when he does get them for her she betrays him, going back to her family. The twist at the end is remarkable but thirty minutes was too short to explain to the audience exactly how futuristic the setting was. For a large part of the play a lot of the viewers did not know what was going on.

The last play is “The Parting Glass” written by Ursula Rani Sarma. The play is about three brothers coping with their father’s death and their respective lives. It is a touching story about how the brothers discover to understand each other and help one another. The three brothers played by Raymond James Hill, David Nelson, and Ryan King all act out their unique characters outstandingly well and they have great teamwork.

The five plays are all very different yet they unite under the theme of New York and its subway system. In a small theater of one hundred people, all the actors showed off their brilliant acting skills and the writers showed off their excellent pieces of work. The writers of “Evangeline Elsewhere” and “The Mission” seem to have bad images of the subway system, describing it as a dangerous place. The play “Shaving the Pickle” shows worries about how New York will be in the future and pokes fun at how the subways are air-conditioned all the time. “The Housekeeper” and “The Parting Glass” do not really mention the subway but they describe the lives of New Yorkers. All the plays go into a pot as different ingredients and together they turn out to be a wonderful dish of art.

Hea Jung Yang