Ben
Brantley

March 25, 2016

In the annals of “the show must go on” stories, the New York production of the Swedish drama “The Hundred We Are” stands out for its gallantry. Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s original script, a portrait of a woman at war with her various selves, calls for a cast of three. The Origin Theater production, which runs through April 8 at the Cell in Chelsea, features four actresses, one of whom never speaks until the play’s final scene. Her lines are voiced instead by an interpolated character, identified in the program as Shadow, a character whose symbolic significance remains fuzzy at best. Audience members in search of enlightenment are advised to read the lengthy explanatory essay included in the program. In it Erwin Maas, the show’s director, says that “only days before opening, we arrived at a point of no return.” The problem, evidently, was that the eldest of the three actresses was having trouble remembering her lines. Mr. Maas writes: “I felt we had two options: 1. To try and hide the struggles most of us have, or will have, as we grow older, ie. Run away from them, like most do, or 2. to run toward these embarrassments, taboos, and this uncomfortable reality, and, instead, openly expose and address it.”