‘Destroying David’ @ Circle Theatre
Graphic art/photos by Taylor Staniforth & TayStan Photography
—Jan Farrington
An Art Restorer (and sometime Tour Guide) known only as YOU rides her office chair around the base of a 500-year-old statue by Michelangelo. She swirls a Madonna-blue scarf into a cradled child, jumps at a ghostly presence, hefts the destructive weight of a sledgehammer, and curves her fingers around the tiny brush she’s using to dust and clean a masterpiece. Solo star Amanda Nicole Reyes’ vivid and oh-so-human presence literally draws the audience into the play—and makes the invisible feel a blink away from visible.
Destroying David is a marvel.
When a playwright reaches the “world premiere” part of the process, the handover of script to theater company must be a nerve-tingling experience. Playwright Jason Odell Williams (Handle With Care, Church & State) put his latest play—an unexpected, emotional bit of storytelling—into the inventive hands of Circle Theatre…and at both ends of this theatrical transaction, everyone ought to be happy with the results.
Turning what Williams calls “a bare play” into this compelling visual experience is a true feat of imagination from director Evan Michael Woods and his creative team. Leah Mazur’s white-columned set design is especially striking—a mindscape of sorts, centered on a curving marble platform, cleared off and ready for memories, revelations, apparitions.
Destroying David (as in the 17-foot masterpiece—and yes, Michelangelo has things to say about the statue’s flaws and future) is a story of timeless art and everyday grief—and the trouble we have accepting the ephemeral, the “temporary” state of all earthly things.
The idea of the play rose from a short news piece Williams read, about modern imaging techniques detecting a network of threatening cracks inside one ankle of the David. And it slowly became a meditation on mortality, both human and artistic.
No matter how much we love something…
in the end it disappears.
You. Me. Everyone we know…
Even, what is arguably, the greatest work of art ever created.
As YOU reveals her experience of human loss, we feel the anger and confusion growing: why is “it” given immortality, but not those we love?
This story is a lot to put on the shoulders of the one human onstage. But the intuitive and vibrant Reyes is up for it all: the comedy, the mock-Italian accent, the audience-participation interludes, the memory of seeing the David for the first time—and blowing off the rest of her European tour. And the fear, the aching grief, the rage—”pain’s ugly cousin,” she calls it. “I am not the typical tour guide,” she tells us. “And this is not the typical Tour!”
Where (and if) YOU comes out of this night-of-the-soul may surprise you—but clearing away dark emotion can create space for something different. There is, always, the “clean, restore, respect” preservation side of art—but just as vital is the making of new art for new generations. And, says YOU, just seeing art live—up close and in person, “changes our brain chemistry. It literally stirs the soul.”
Should we listen to Michelangelo, though? He doesn’t approve of our desperate need to keep his David immortal—safe and warm in a museum, not in the open-air piazza where it was created. “I don’t like this,” he growls. “Art is water, is oxygen, is life! No sunlight, no moonlight…and people pay.”
There is no one, true “right” answer. But I guarantee you’ll never walk past that 17-foot boy again (or see him in a book) with quite the same mix of emotions. Theatre is water, too.
WHEN: January 30-February 22, 2025
WHERE: 230 West Fourth Street, Fort Worth
WEB: circletheatre.com
