THE LIGHTS
at the Organic Theater Company Greenhouse, Lab Theater
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The Lights is not focused, however. Here Korder attempts to make a grand statement about life in big, dirty, nasty New York City and follow the wanderings of two characters–a naif, Lilian, and her boyfriend Fredric. Korder quickly proves, however, that he needs much more time than a two-act play–and a rather long two-act play at that–to really tell his story.
Lilian is the more active of the two. She steals a watch from work, is coaxed by her friend into spending a night on the town with a pair of older prosperous men, and is coerced into having sex. Fredric merely falls apart. At first he’s just an unemployed guy down on his luck but sincerely looking for work. But his situation deteriorates rapidly–over the course of about 24 hours he’s revealed to be a junkie, gets beaten up by a mobster because he owes more than he can cough up, takes a degrading and illegal job stripping an abandoned building of its fixtures, and is transformed into a raggedy homeless man.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Jesse M. Kahn.
