COIL: Particularly in the Heartland

Particularly in the Heartland is a fantastic journey into the meaning of America, a tale that unites not only a left-wing New York businesswoman (Jessica Almasy) with a trio of Rapture-fearing Christian children (Kristen Sieh, Frank Boyd, and Libby King), but with their American past, a resurrected Robert Kennedy (Jake Margolin), and their probable future, a pregnant alien (more like the immigrant kind) named Tracy Jo (Jill Frutkin). The collaboration of a hard-boiled theater group shows: their subtle nuances all succeed, and director Rachel Chavkin gets away with some of the most fluid and heartbreaking montages. If anything, it's the more experimental stuff that gets in the way -- the audience adds nothing to the performance -- and the play, though I suspect left intentionally lumpy in places, could benefit from being about fifteen minutes shorter.

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