Knives in Hens
Opening Night: October 19, 2017
Closing: November 12, 2017
Theater: 59E59 Theaters
In a rural world, poised on the cusp of transformation, the fates of a young woman, her plowman husband, and the local miller collide in a quest for knowledge, agency, and freedom. The Shop (I am the Wind, Tender Napalm) return to 59E59 Theaters bringing David Harrower’s “astonishing” (The Telegraph), seminal work to New York for the first time. Exploring one woman’s journey to find herself, it unpacks the subtle power of words and ideas to liberate, empower, and lift the mind and soul
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October 29, 2017
It happens only rarely. But on the occasional random, happy day, you come across a work of art that you’ve never encountered before, even though it’s been around for years. And it feels so absolutely essential to your experience that you think, “But where have you been all my life?”
That was the way I felt seeing David Harrower’s “Knives in Hens,” which opened on Sunday at 59E59 Theaters in a becomingly modest production, directed by Paul Takacs, in a tiny upstairs space. First staged in 1995, but only now receiving its New York premiere, this stark three-character play came early in the career of Mr. Harrower, best known for the incendiary “Blackbird,” seen on Broadway last year.
Though a great admirer of “Blackbird,” I was only dimly aware of “Knives in Hens.” It has been revived several times in London, and only several months ago at the Donmar Warehouse. And each time the play itself (if not always the production) has elicited the kind of marveling, open-mouthed praise that leaves you wary.
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