We get a big dose of Ms. Churchill’s withering sarcasm, for instance, in a scene between a vicar (Rob Campbell) and his servant (Mikéah Ernest Jennings). Clearly, Ms. Churchill wants the audience to endure in real time the inertia that stifled change in 1647 and so much human potential over the centuries. As written, “Light Shining in Buckinghamshire” aims to keep the audience at a Brechtian distance so that sentiment won’t cloud its politics. To that end Ms. Churchill recommends that every actor play several characters and that many characters be played by several actors, thus preventing us from getting attached to anyone. It is only in such moments that you feel Ms. Churchill’s mature temperament at work: political, to be sure, but a politics distilled into much greater pungency by wit and love and indirection.

Source: New York Times May 08, 2018 01:41 UTC