{"id":4937,"date":"2023-02-10T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gabrielvasconcellos.com\/?p=4937"},"modified":"2023-06-11T22:33:07","modified_gmt":"2023-06-11T22:33:07","slug":"graceland-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gabrielvasconcellos.com\/?p=4937","title":{"rendered":"Graceland Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Graceland<\/em> is nothing its name implies (nope, nothing about Elvis here). It is a raw, grueling, timelapse of a broken relationship that holds the viewer hostage through every up and its many, many downs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Graceland<\/em> shares many similarities to an earlier production, Elephant<\/em>, at the Bush Theatre. While Elephant<\/em> focused more on how society and culture can strain a relationship, Graceland<\/em> is more about how an abusive and toxic relationship can manifest in ways that are all too familiar for those who have been in one. The play\u2019s relatability is its biggest strength and<\/strong> weakness; its impact depends on whether you\u2019ve been in a similar relationship. That\u2019s not to say that it has nothing to offer if you haven\u2019t been a victim of one, but it\u2019s evident that writer Ava Wong Davies is trying to tap into a particular trauma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Photo Credit: Ali Wright<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The entire performance is delivered via monologue by a single character (another similarity shared with Elephant<\/em>), Nina, performed by Sabrina Wu. Her partner addressed as \u201cYou\u201d throughout most of the play (his name is revealed at the end), never appears. The writing isn\u2019t bad, but midway through, I found myself asking: \u201cWhy is this a performance?\u201d It felt like I was listening to an audiobook while watching a woman roll around in dirt. That\u2019s another thing, the dirt. There is a little visual storytelling with Nina surrounded by dirt and a frameless bed. The filthier Nina becomes mirrors the deteriorating nature of her relationship. It\u2019s a bit on the nose. The unusual orientation of the stage, where at any moment Nina could have her back turned towards half of the audience, can make it difficult to focus, and when your entire story is told as a monologue, you can\u2019t afford to lose the audience\u2019s attention. Additionally, Nina\u2019s recollection goes back in forth in time, the shifts marked by violins and warmer or cooler colors illuminating the stage. I honestly couldn\u2019t tell if this lack of cohesiveness was even intentional. Was it trying to say that Nina is an unreliable narrator? Or did I not pay enough attention?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a lot of ambition in Graceland<\/em>\u2019s dark twist on romance, but ambition can only go so far. Its story hinges on your ability to catch the many hints of its doomed future before the climax. There is a broader discussion to be had on the power dynamics between Nina, her partner, and even the intergenerational trauma within her family. But with a runtime of just 75 minutes, there isn\u2019t enough time for that conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2\/5<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trauma filled meltdown of a relationship that’s better read than performed.\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"csco_singular_sidebar":"right","csco_page_header_type":"default","csco_page_load_nextpost":"default","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,35],"tags":[30,12,39,38,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-4937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reviews","8":"category-written","9":"tag-culture","10":"tag-lifestyle","11":"tag-london","12":"tag-nyu","13":"tag-review","14":"cs-entry","15":"cs-video-wrap"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gabrielvasconcellos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gabrielvasconcellos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gabrielvasconcellos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gabrielvasconcellos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gabrielvasconcellos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4937"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gabrielvasconcellos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4961,"href":"https:\/\/gabrielvasconcellos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4937\/revisions\/4961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gabrielvasconcellos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gabrielvasconcellos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gabrielvasconcellos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gabrielvasconcellos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}