(Michael Feingold’s articles appeared 10/27 in the Village Voice.)
Julia Cho's last play produced here, The Piano Teacher, centered on a sinister character, unseen on stage, who abused vulnerable children by telling horrific fables. Now Cho herself has written a fable, but The Language Archive (Laura Pels Theater), this year's Blackburn Award winner, turns out to be about as charming, beautifully wrought, and un-horrific as a fable can get. Modest in its ambitions, small in scope and, as fables tend to be, slightly abstract, it has a bittersweet hardheadedness that keeps its charm from lapsing into sentimentality, and a verbal tang that makes even its more predictable turns fun to relish in performance. Though probably not a great play, it's a sturdy one, likely to last.
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