←Recommendations of Albemarle

An exciting, inventive, and highly original piece! Not only did the spare, lyrical poetry read beautifully on the page, but it was also easy to imagine this as an audio, teleconferencing, or live play. It would live and breathe well in each medium. Compelling and briskly moving storytelling that stuck with me long after in the way it addressed moving on and giving into despair vs. charging forth with hope. There is a warm everyday humor about it that is paired with a sense of whimsy and magic and a spare beauty.

As an actor/director/producer who is drawn to pieces that present the reality of life in beautiful and unique manners, as well as work that highlights the binding qualities of the human race, ALBEMARLE was right up my alley. The play is lyrically poetic, lulling you into lushly imaginative sensations; then sharply, bitingly aware and strikingly disheartening. As the night carries on, we come to find that I's shoes are a universal one-size-fits-all, solidifying that we are all "one mad beautiful human race."

Svich operates at the height of her powers with this song of teenage longing and bravado that aches and swells while rocking out, or "kicking the world fantastic." Albemarle kicks, that's for sure. I had the good fortune to direct a reading of this play in February of 2020 at the Wild Project in NYC, and the text - intricate, offbeat, simple - yielded up a polyvocal world of remarkable variety and depth. It's a joy for actors, and a true gem of a new play.

Svich brings you the brink. You are at the edge-lands of despair. I is coming age amid a barren landscape of memory and dust. I is wishing for those past who gave them goodness while noting the futility of wishing. But then there’s a badger. And a cleaner in a remnant of a once splendid opera house. And briefly some good happens. Going forward may mean letting go of what sustained you/them. The play haunts and mesmerizes. Both I and Albermarle will stay with you for a long time. As will the nature of hope.

This play worked its way into my heart in the most surprising of ways. Intimate and epic. Unpredictable and oddly familiar. Sometimes I felt like "I," in love + beaten up + confused. And sometimes I felt like "You," stuck in a perpetual blank "..."

Love this play.