Category Archives: The Verge

The Verge at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater 2009

In November 2009 the Ontological-Hysteric Theater’s Incubator program for emerging artists produced The Verge directed by Alice Reagan and Performance Lab 115. New York Times critic Claudia La Rocco wrote, “It would be easy to reduce The Verge, Susan Glaspell’s 1921 play, to a feminist tract. Society forces Claire Archer into the boxes it deems acceptable; in attempting to escape those boxes, Claire goes mad. But that summary ignores the work’s wild heart, which, like its fragile, monstrous heroine, is somehow irreducible.”

Rebecca Lingafelter plays Claire in Alice Reagan's Ontological-Hysteric production of The Verge. Other performers included Sara Buffamanti as Anthony, B. Brian Argotsinger as Harry, Tuomas Hiltunen as Dick, and Todd d'Amour as Tom. Photo by Sue Kessler.

SGS members were in attendance and, while La Rocco thought that Reagan’s use of video interludes (by Jeff Clarke) of voluptuously flowering plans was “heavy-handed,” SGS member Michael Winetsky felt that the video as well as Claire’s dance performed by Rebecca Lingafelter “were effective and were in the spirit of Glaspell’s expressionism.” For full text of La Rocca’s Nov. 10 2009 review: