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THE LIBRARY Send This Review to a Friend
Before the play by Scott Z. Burns begins, we see onstage a body lying on a slab. But it is hard for an actress to be still for so long. At the performance I attended once in a while she flicked the toes on her right foot. But the image was there, signaling the toll taken in “The Library,” about the aftermath of a deadly shooting in a high school, resulting in the injustice done to a student falsely accused of telling the killer where some students were hiding.
Film director Steven Soderbergh in a stage directing debut succeeds in making a thin and contrived play visually interesting by embellishment. Within a lean setting (designed by Riccardo Hernandez) there are lighting flashes (lighting design by David Lander) when the shootings are mentioned. Soderbergh re-arranges cast members skillfully in assorted patterns to highlight them in the tale of woe. This helps make the production, presented by The Public Theater, more involving than the schematic play would otherwise be.
The story is rather bizarre, built around the false accusation against wounded teenager Caitlin Gabriel, played by film actress Chloë Grace Moretz, who can’t get anyone to believe her as students and parents make her a pariah based on the account of a boy who, in turns out, mistakenly identifies her as the one who pointed the killer toward the closet in which some students were hiding. A detective, played by Tamara Tunie (of “Law and Order” fame) doesn’t believe her. Even Caitlin’s parents (portrayed by Michael O’Keefe and Jennifer Westfeldt) want her to stop maintaining her innocence and thereby get access to a victim’s fund payout denied her and the ability to move on with her life.
Meanwhile, Dawn Sheridan, played by LIli Taylor, the mother of a girl who died and is being lionized, is achieving commercial success with her version of events built upon Caitlin’s guilt.
In addition to the special interest spurred by Soderbergh’s participation, the spotlight is on the performance by Moretz, known for her screen work in the “Kick Ass” films and as the star in the remake of “Carrie,” as well as in other movies. On stage she convincingly summons the passion required in her staunch defiance of those against her. However, she does need practice in enunciating some of her dialogue more clearly to meet theater requirements. But she is always interesting to observe.
The basic problem with “The Library” is that the author has taken the subject of shootings in schools and imposed a rather far-fetched situation upon it to devise the unlikely plot. A good cast and clever staging help provide the illusion of substance. At the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street. Phone: 212-967-7555. Reviewed April 20, 2014.
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