Wights - Review of 2025 Crow’s Theatre Production

The word “wight” has many meanings but for the purpose of Liz Appel’s new play Wights let’s settle for “human being.” It’s an archaic word and there is a definition on the eyeball on the Crow’s Theatre program cover but it is not all readable.
The production of Wights has many virtues and some issues that detract from the focus of the play which is racism. The play is set in New Haven, Connecticut, the locale of Yale University. It has two couples, the main one being Danny (Ari Cohen) and Anita (Rachel Lewis). The other couple are Bing (Richard Lee) and Celine (Sochi Fried).
The play deals with racism with such intensity and an intellectual level so high that it is sometimes difficult to follow and sometimes even comprehend. Danny and Anita are biracial. He is a lawyer and she has studied law and is applying for a position as director of an institution that deals with racial issues. She is preparing to face the hiring committee and wants to dazzle them with her brilliance and fresh approach to a central issue in America.
She is half black and half white. Dan is part Jewish but he looks like the classic white male who is accused in some circles of being part of a ruling class that set the rules for the treatment of other racial groups by taking their land, committing genocide and treating them as lesser human beings. Anita wants to attack those issues and change the white perception of everything while advocating a point of view that does not exist yet.
Bing is Chinese and he is returning to Beijing because he is offered a position that he cannot get in the U.S. His partner Celeste is pregnant and he has decided to return to China without telling her. Bing and Celine are sounding boards for the intense arguments of Danny and Anita but have their own issues.
The arguments, however brilliant and intense can result in a crashing bore on stage but Appel mixes realistic facts with theory to illustrate and alleviate the intellectual heights. Danny cuts his finger, there are trick-or-treaters at the door (it is Halloween in 2024, days before the U.S. elections) and other real-life facts. Anita’s mother died because she did not receive proper medical attention because she was black. Danny has posted their savings as a bond to get an unjustly convicted client out of jail without telling his wife.
Appel faces the huge theme of racism head on but there are some issues on stage. The characters speak loudly, fast, over each other and are not always compressible. The arguments at times descend to rants losing their effectiveness. Wights is a single-issue play that Danny cannot quite comprehend and Anita wants answers to the treatment of non-whites and to effect a change to it. but, as I said, she does not know how or what point of view to instill because she does not know what it is yet.
She is relentless in her attacks on her husband as being a racist and as a liberal and legal defender he is unable to accept or understand her position. Lending money to a client for his release can only be classified as stupid, especially behind his wife’s back and lending money that was intended to buy their house. Anita considers that as a sign of the exercise of superiority by a white man over a black woman. Would he have acted differently if she were white? An act of stupidity (nobility decency?) does not become racist just because one of the parties is not white. And try defining what racially “white” means which Danny tries to do.
The actors must perform at breakneck speed speaking quickly and very forcefully but not always understood. Part of the problem is that the play is performed in a theatre-in-the-round set which means that inevitably someone is speaking with his/her back to us. But director Chris Abraham perhaps should have sacrificed some speed for the sake of comprehension.
The set by Joshua Quinlan consists of a large kitchen with an island in the center and a table and chairs. When there is a point to be made there is a flash of lights (Imogen Wilson, Lighting Designer) and a crashing sound (Thomas Ryder-Payne, Sound Designer). It struck me as overkill but the play wants to make its point.
Appel in her professional debut as a playwright takes no prisoners in her arguments but telling us that we need a point of view that she does not know yet is not very helpful. Abraham does his utmost to bring home the intellectual and domestic issues of the characters with a powerful cast but there are issues in the play and the production that are not overcome.
Wights by Liz Appel continues until February 8, 2025, at the Guloien Theatre, Crow’s Theatre, 345 Carlaw Avenue, Toronto, Ontario. http://crowstheatre.com/

Richard Lee, Ari Cohen and Rachel Leslie in Wights. Photo; Dahlia Katz

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