On With THE SHOW

The RETURN this year of LIVE PERFORMANCES wasn't just welcome, it was TRANSFORMATIVE, as ACTORS, DRAMATISTS, DANCERS, MUSICIANS, COMEDIANS, and ARTISTS of all stripes RETURNED to the STAGE-and the INTIMACY of IN-PERSON AUDIENCESwith a NEW URGENCY

The world is falling apart. It feels like we're the Antrobus family in Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, somehow going about our lives while a shift in a geological epoch or two rages just outside.

Coup hearings bookmark a year-long pandemic. A leaked draft of a SCOTUS opinion forecasts the end of the constitutional right to abortion. An electric car edgelord who was supposed to save the planet with style and batteries has proved to be more Wizard of Oz than science-fiction messiah. Yet there is reason for hope. So sayeth artists making their way through the existential muck of life.

Take Oh God, a Show About Abortion, created by comedian Alison Leiby and presented, for its run at New York's Cherry Lane Theater, by her friend and colleague Hana Glazer. Leiby's one-woman show is about the absurdity of life as a woman. She had an abortion when she was 35. Leiby had reached a level of economic security that could accommodate a baby, but she did not want to become a mother. This was not an unwanted pregnancy that arose out of tragic or violent circumstances. It was an inconvenience. Saying that out loud every night was powerful.