9/10 – 04 September 2023

9/10 paints a portrait of an imperfect world on the eve of great tragedy (9/11) including many powerful reminders that, although 9/11 shattered American culture, a lot of the bigotry frequently attributed to our post-9/11 world actually existed already. 9/10 presents four snapshots of two person interactions the night before the tragedy. Some felt it coming. Others were planning the rest of their lives. There was racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, ageism, stereotypes about firemen, husband hunting, struggling artists, repressed memories—it was all there the night before 9/11.

In 9/10, the characters explore the unique challenges of being themselves in a world full of judgment. Some are immigrants working blue-collar jobs, others are young lovers struggling for connection. Some are just trying to get through their jobs even when the jobs are inhibiting their ability to have normal and necessary human feelings. Others are worried it’s too late, worried they have no future doing what they love and should set it all aside. The show screams of day-to-day humanity. The point is not about an outcome—who survives, who does not. These characters are not real people, they are archetypes. People just like them survived. People just like them did not.

The staging was selected for a combination of practicality and symbolism. In a symbolic sense, it was powerful that each story was trapped in its designated space. The characters had very limited possibilities for movement. It was nice conceptually, but in actuality it made sight lines in the physical space difficult for many. The acting, writing, and design elements of the show transcended the physical space for those able to hang on every word. Yet some audience members seemed more focused on trying to see the actors and lost some of the words and, consequently, some of the meaning.

I was enamored with this show, and felt that its strengths were in all of the words that were not said. Richard Willett delivers a master class in subtext, relying on the audience to piece together the “isms” as the characters are, themselves for the most part, unaware of their biases. The show was not about 9/11 in a literal sense, but posits a radical idea that 9/11 did not create these issues. It exaggerated issues that already existed and brought them to the forefront. In a way, once past the immediate aftermath, this helped society start talking about these issues. Counter intuitively, 9/10 sparks hope that if we could choose love and understanding before the Twin Towers fell, we can do so afterwards as well.

I attended this performance on a free ticket from Show-Score.