“In The Green” is packed full of ideas – entire articles could be devoted to unpacking just the dramatic ideas, just the ideas about theatricality and presentation, just the philosophical ideas behind the story Grace is telling. And next to all of those ideas, complementing all of them, are ideas about music: weird, spooky, ecstatic and virtuosic concepts that build on sources as diverse as Gregorian chant, indie rock, hip-hop, Yoko Ono, Meredith Monk, Ligeti, Bjork. Because Grace’s singing voice can do literally anything, many of those musical ideas revolve around the manipulation of the female voice – in layers, in canon, in unison, in silence, and as foreground, as accompaniment, as percussion. What she puts these five astonishing singers through over the course of ninety minutes is unlike anything I have ever experienced in a theater in my life. At every moment, there is a fierce pioneering inventiveness.
“Kudos to Kris Kukul and Ada Westfall and a really powerhouse band, and especially to the five tireless singers: Rachael Duddy, Ashley Pérez Flanagan, Mia Pak, Hannah Whitney, and the den mother, visionary, and iconoclast at the center, Grace McLean.” Read more