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A Light At The End of A World Is Changing A Game I Thought Was Already Called

Sometimes the critic isn’t always right. (Shocker huh?) @knowtheatre

By Ricky and Dana Young-Howze

Know Theatre Of Cincinnati

Venmo: @rndyounghowze

Review 190

I tried to write the review for this show three times. Every time I thought that I had figured it out and knew what to say I hit a wall. I had come into 2021 with this idea that theatre needed to shy away from going bigger and focus on getting a strong foundation for building longevity. However there is still something radical, experimental, and mind blowing about digital theatre just by existing. That’s why “A Light At The End Of A World” by Know Theatre of Cincinnati promptly told me to sit down, shut up, and enjoy the show.

Before we saw the show we were telling everyone how excited we were to see this “choose your own adventure” story. We owe Know Theatre an apology. They are actually doing something akin to a format I love, “human library” or “menu theatre” as it is called when done in-person. Three production teams came together to create their own vignettes that can be chosen as a book on the shelf (so in essence DVD menu style theatre). We saw all of them but you’ll get to choose one from each of the three sections.

Each track has been beautifully produced and uses the talents of the creators in a cool and interesting way. We usually don’t give summaries but here is a short run down of what you can expect: A man in his attic regaling us with the surprisingly rich history of lighthouses, spectacular puppet performances of old sea tales, and vibrant video art pieces set to creative soundscapes. None of these sound alike, right? That’s the point. It’s now up to you to decide what mix of these great pieces you want to see.

The overarching theme of this whole experiment is using digital theatre to create a one of a kind experience that is unique to each viewer. This is proving critics who say pre recorded performances aren’t theatre because the shows aren’t ephemeral like in-person performance dead wrong. Not only is it never the same way twice, The Light at the End of the World is hardly the same way for two separate audience members. Two friends could be watching this show from their respective houses and still not be talking about the same play the next morning. Wake up everyone, the future of digital theatre has arrived!

I usually say this about once a month but this was absolutely the hardest review I’ve ever written. I was prepared to be so critical talking about the ambitious format and the over reliance on tech to make this work properly. I was so frustrated by the technological difficulties we were having I forgot to look at the wonder. We learned the vital role critics play as beta testers in digital theatre while messaging with the amazing Henry Bateman just about every time we hit a snag as he updated what we were seeing in real-time. I was prepared to fill this review with visceral rants against the technology and how much simpler I thought it could be. However at the end of the day who cares what I think. I found myself crying because of the beauty of this piece and that right there is why it should be defended to the death. Know Theatre is laying on the barbed wire so that future productions can be beautiful too. Let me get off my high horse so there won’t be any hoof prints on their back.