Synchronicity’s 1:23 Medea blitz
April 22, 2009 at 12:15 pm by Curt Holman in Events, review, theater
MAMMA MIA: Suehyla El-Attar as La Llorona, the weeping woman, a character from Mexican folklore
Synchronicity Performance Group presents a different kind of murder mystery with its production of 1:23.
Playwright Carson Kreitzer’s drama draws on elements of police procedurals like “Law & Order” in its investigation of the crimes of Susan Smith and two other notorious mothers who killed their children. In 1:23, we know whodunit, so the more pressing question becomes, “Why did they do it?” Kreitzer’s script finds clues in official records, urban legends and Latin-American folklore, placing the killings in complex, almost baffling cultural and psychological contexts.
Synchronicity Performance Group specializes in plays that address female-oriented subject matter by women artists. Few themes prove as big or challenging as the ones raised in 1:23. If anything, the play’s ambition nearly overleaps itself in its attempt to address too many ideas in too limited a time. 1:23 serves as a harrowing thematic symphony that can be overly pretentious and opaque, yet also builds to some genuine revelations.
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