About the Play

Is Daniel MacIvor’s IN ON IT a stylized theatrical puzzle? An acting tour de force for two exceptional performers; a witty and knowing deconstruction of a relationship; a sharply satiric look at the dissolution of a marriage; an exploration of the hairline border between living and dying; or a meditation on how artists create Art from life?

In truth, it’s all these things. But the real reason I want to work on the play again is that, behind its meta-theatrical intricacies and alienation effects, it has an amazing heart, which accounts for the surprising emotional wallop we experience at the climax.

Like the purest of Shakespeare productions, IN ON IT forces its actors to create a world out of themselves, a few props and, most importantly, a gray jacket. Simply donning or removing the jacket can conjure a jilted husband, a faithless wife, or a grief-stricken playwright. While the concentric circles of the play’s three realities collide and intersect in ways that only become clear in the play’s final cataclysm, the jacket remains a literal touchstone—the only tangible item in a constantly changing landscape.

Rehearsing IN ON IT will be great fun as well as an exciting challenge: creating the characterizations, exploring the complex duality of the piece (is it a tragic aria or a bubblegum pop song?), sorting through the lively interplay of ideas and, of course, choreographing a very silly dance.

Please read the playwright’s notes carefully. This One/Brian and That One/Brad is probably the best way to think of the characters as you read. On a practical note, there are no set ages for the characters, which offers even more leeway in a reading. However, I do think it’s important that This One/Brian reads at least five years older than That One/Brad.

Working on or seeing this play, I think we walk away understanding a little more about love and loss and the healing power of Art.

—Michael Van Duzer