Alice Update

I’ve just returned from the first performance of The Alice Complex. The blurb I cited in my previous post doesn’t really do justice to the play, which is a shrewdly written meditation not only on feminism and the bonds between student and teacher, but also on the vicissitudes of age and on the nature of performance and theatricality. At an hour and fifteen moments, the play is tantalizingly suggestive rather than exhaustive in its delineation of character, but the two actresses who make up the entire cast — Lisa Banes and Xanthe Elbrick — do a marvelous job of delineating personalities and relationships through gesture and body language. They’re both terrific, as they play multiple, overlapping roles. If you have a chance, go see The Alice Complex at the Cherry Lane Theater.