Silhouettes
by Jordan Ealey & Ari Afsar
Directed by Kateri Cale
Produced by Echo Theatre
Audience Rating: PG13
Run Time: 75 minutes, no intermission
Accessible Seating: Available
Hearing Devices: Not Available
Sensory Friendly Performance: Not Available
Production Sound Level: Comfortable Volume
Noises or Visuals to Prepare For: None of Note
Reviewed by Jenny Wood
Silhouettes is a new musical which explores the process of choice across time, class, religion and race. Staged as a script-in-hand workshop by Echo Theatre, the show began development as a cathartic response to the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, or, as the case is more conversationally known, the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
In their publicity materials, creators Jordan Ealey and Ari Afsar describe their artistic intention: “We continue to see that history is cyclical and equity is fleeting, but when policy fails, art has the opportunity to step in. Silhouettes is a musical about choice, sisterhood and intergenerational courage… We want this musical to be a safe and brave haven amid attempts to create a culture of fear and a reminder that people are not alone.”
In her curtain speech, Director Kateri Cale - also Echo’s Managing & Artistic Director - talked about how she was drawn to this material because it felt grounded in a crazy, chaotic time.
I was skeptical – no, cautiously optimistic. Grounded? I have experienced many artistic responses to this theme in the last three years, grounded is not a word I would use to describe the feelings those efforts left me with.
But because this is an Echo production after all, I was not skeptical; I was cautiously optimistic.
And then pleasantly surprised. A little relieved maybe?
The show is a tight 75 minutes driven by character and relationships.
Instead of loud and preachy, two women share their stories with each other in a waiting room. A 19 year old student has traveled, alone, from very far, on a tight deadline, and a 35ish year old local are waiting for their names to be called. Where one might expect big speeches, we get engaging lyrics - some upbeat and some not - describing how it feels to move through the world adapting to their current circumstance. There is no aggrandizing any particular path - just conversation about how they got to where they are and where they hope to go.
It’s a testament to the authors’ craftsmanship that the first buzzword to drop doesn’t hit until around the 65 minute mark, and that I didn’t notice it hadn’t until it happened, prompting me to check my watch to confirm the timestamp.
This is also when I realized that two clocks on either side of the stage had remained set to zero for nearly the full duration of the play. The stagnant numbers combined with occasional asynchronous comments from either woman - a line about Taxis even still existing by one, a reference to fleeing Jim Crow South as a child from the other - left me wondering what year it was supposed to be. Only as they moved into the final moments did a “wall drop and the clocks change” to make it clear who was when… and ohhhhhhh, that’s the point. History is cyclical and equity is fleeting.
I really enjoyed how not angry or fearful this show was, how we moved beyond those phases to make room discussing complexities with nuance and compassion, so that we were able to leave feeling grounded in a crazy and chaotic time.
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