The Unlikely Ascent of Sybil Stevens – Location, Tickets, Reviews
In The Unlikely Ascent of Sybil Stevens, a flight attendant, the eponymous Sybil, survives a devastating commercial plane crash. She is the sole survivor.
Sybil is pulled from the wreckage by a friendly Wyoming emergency medical technician (EMT), who helps her recover until she is well-enough to return home to Chicago. Even then her body is racked with pain and she can barely walk. So begins the play.
Sybil’s physical pain is just one of the challenges she must endure following the crash: She is hounded by the media; her well-meaning, college-aged nephew launches a blog and social media campaign in a feeble attempt to guide the public narrative; her rescuer appears on her doorstep without notice and insinuates himself in her life; and she must withstand the knowledge that she survived when so many perished.
Maxamoo
The omnivorous and omnipresent maze that is modern media–print, television, and social media networks–is a challenge to navigate under the best of conditions, much less on the backend of a tragedy. In this play, we watch Sybil travel a familiar path: sainted by public opinion, brought down by the same, and her attempt at redemption using the very tools that caused her demise.
This is a solid production of a play that asks some fundamental questions about our contemporary culture and the costs and benefits of celebrating (or depending on your perspective, exploiting) ordinary people who experience extraordinary events. The main character Sybil is both well-drawn by playwright Kari Bentley-Quinn and excellently portrayed by Jennifer Gordon Thomas. The play’s weaknesses relate to secondary characters and storylines. The well-meaning nephew is gratuitously a recovering addict. The heroic EMT makes a series of choices and inopportune exclamations that seem insane. Although on second thought, we’ve seen actual people make choices in real life that were just as, if not more, crazy. Maybe, to be believable, we need our fiction to be a lot less strange than truth.
Public Opinion
The Twitterpinion:
@JamesComtois: Well done, guys! Really enjoyed ‘The Unlikely Ascent of Sybil Stevens.’ @gideonsean @jengordonthomas @inflammatorywrt
Have you seen The Unlikely Ascent of Sybil Stevens? What did you think? Comment below or tweet to us at @Maxamoo.
Critics’ Reviews
TheaterMania
Bentley-Quinn has written a sensitive and intelligent play about an extremely fraught situation. While there is tremendous value to such a clear-eyed assessment, it tends to drag in the second act as the play struggles to conclude. It is not at all what one would expect from a play about a horrifying air tragedy.
TICKETS
$15 – $18 (click to purchase tickets from OvationTix, the official online ticket seller for The Unlikely Ascent of Sybil Stevens)
DATES
Performances through February 23, 2014
LOCATION
The Secret Theatre
4402 23rd Street
Long Island City, New York
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RUNNING TIME
2 hours and 10 minutes, 1 intermission
CAST & CREW
(partial list)
Written by Kari Bentley-Quinn
Directed by Christopher Diercksen
Featuring Yeauxlanda Kay, Jennifer Gordon Thomas, Jordan Tierney, Samantha Fairfield Walsh, Sean Williams
NEWS
ByKennethJones.com
A Plane Crash Sparks “The Unlikely Ascent of Sybil Stevens,” a New Play by Kari Bentley-Quinn
Indie Theatre Now
Profile: The Unlikely Ascent of Sybil Stevens
Theater In The Now
Spotlight On…Samantha Fairfield Walsh
Works By Women
Interview: Jennifer Gordon Thomas
The Story Of A Playwright
Christopher Diercksen and Secrets in Queens