[Note: The main review below is for the 2022 production of Oratorio for Living Things at Ars Nova. The update is for the show's 2025 encore run at the Signature Theatre.]
Update:
I was nervous about revisiting Oratorio for Living Things, Heather Christian's singular and sonorous exploration of existence. What if Signature Theatre Company's remounting of Ars Nova's 2022 sensation didn't match my memories? I needn't have worried: This musical masterwork by the newly minted MacArthur genius is designed for repeated viewings. In sequences of meticulously curated cacophony that give way to glorious, enthralling harmonies, it offers a multitude of wonders and interpretations. You could see it again and again and again and come away with a different understanding at each performance.
Aside from a few new singers and musicians, little beyond the venue has changed. A significant portion of the text is in Latin, and librettos are no longer handed out—audiences were absconding with them—so you can no longer follow along. But that's just as well, because Christian's creation demands full engagement. The more you let go of trying to make sense of it all, the more you'll be rewarded as the show grapples with unanswerable questions about how we spend our all-too-short time in the universe. Oratorio for Living Things remains a magnificent use of 90 minutes of that time.
Original review:
Heather Christian's divine Oratorio for Living Things welcomes you to worship. To call this genre-nonconforming show a musical would be reductive: It's a sui generis meditation on time and existence, a classical choral masterwork infused with pop, blues and gospel. A dozen superlative vocalists and six marvelous instrumentalists make sense and aural spectacle out of Christian's compositions. Because the lyrics are dense and can be difficult to parse (some parts are in Latin, sometimes it builds into cacophony), librettos are distributed at the door. You can use them as hymnals to follow along, but engaging fully with Oratorio in all its mysterious glory is a transcendent experience.
Those familiar with Christian's background—she's described her upbringing as "avant-garde Catholicism"—and with her previous shows (I Am Sending You the Sacred Face, Animal Wisdom) know that ritual and religion are threaded throughout her work. Fittingly, director Lee Sunday Evans's simple yet effective staging sometimes evokes a church choir, with the cast swaying and clapping in unison. Aided by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew evocative lighting, scenic designer Kristen Robinson has completely transformed Ars Nova's Greenwich House, placing the audience in tiered seating in the round; the performers pass inches from your face and sing directly to you as they periodically descend to a small central playing space that is dominated by a glowing orb that suggests a nucleus or star.
Christian isn't just examining how humans process time; she's pondering evolution and cosmology, too. (In the program, she thanks theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli, astronomer Carl Sagan and Carmina Burana composer Carl Orff for "directly inspiring" the piece.) Lest that sound pretentious, be assured that Oratorio for Living Things is, above all, exhilarating. Even when the meaning is obscure, the breathtaking music, full of complex harmonies and counterpoint, swells with immediate emotion. And when individual lyrics or stories ring through, they are piercing—as in a section about how much time one spends doing both mundane and amazing things throughout one's lifetime. Just as the performers emerge as individuals within a greater whole, the piece makes you feel at once inconsequential and essential, a unique and integral part of the universe.
Oratorio for Living Things was in previews when the shutdown began in March 2020, and after two years when our relationship to time has been thoroughly upended, its themes have only deepened to inspire new inquiries. You could see this production repeatedly and come away with a different valid understanding at each visit. The show’s current run at Ars Nova is sold out, but an extension or transfer seems possible. Let's all pray that it gets more time.
Oratorio for Living Things (Off Broadway). By Heather Christian. Directed by Lee Sunday Evans. With ensemble cast. Running time: 1hr 30mins. No intermission.
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Oratorio for Living Things | Photograph: Courtesy Ben Arons