The Architecture of Becoming*

What happens when you assemble five writers (Kara Lee Corthron, Sarah Gancher, Virginia Grise, Dipika Guha, and Lauren Yee) and three directors (Elena Araoz, Lydia Fort, and Lauren Keating) and set them loose on the topic of the history of New York City Center? 

Unfortunately, in the Women's Project's latest production, The Architecture of Becoming*, you get 90 minutes of ideas, concepts, stories, and attitudes that just don't gel. Rather than coming across as a play, or even a thematic series of one acts, The Architecture of Becoming* resembles nothing so closely as a high school sing, full of in jokes and attempted significance, and much more fun and meaningful for the creators and performers than for the audience.

*12/4/14: just discovered, to my embarrassment, that I had the title of this show wrong throughout the review. I wrote Architecture of Being (incorrect) instead of Architecture of Becoming (correct). My apologies to all involved.

Vanessa Kai, Danielle Skraastad
Photo: Carol Rosegg