Family. Sacrifice. Love.
These are the themes that infuse Last Night and the Night Before – a deeply complex and beautiful web of words strung together to create a story that is universal. We’ve all been impacted by addiction, whether it’s to a substance or another human being. We’ve all felt connected and disconnected, broken and rebuilt again. Last Night and the Night Before pulls us into a family troubled by the pains of their past through which they are baptized into the hope of their future. However, the current that feeds their stream of hope is the love that flows beneath every action made. In this play, love is a magnet and the people, places, and events are shards of metal scattered around. Last Night also reminds us that sometimes love hurts. Sometimes the best love we can offer is what ends up doing the most damage; we hold on so tight that we end up strangling the very thing that we are trying to protect. We can’t hide from our family or from our past. We see this in the play through the phantom-like flashbacks of the character’s histories that show up throughout, and it is through these phantoms that we understand not only who these characters are but why they are the way they are. We begin to understand that every choice, even the hard ones that appear to be made out of callousness, are actually grounded in love. From this, we also see a reckoning with roots, and an acceptance of them. So my deep desire for you, audience member, is that while watching this love letter crafted for you unfold on the stage, you root yourself down deep into the architecture of this theatre and open yourself to the wonders of empathy and love as the characters search for the same in their journey.
– Noah Ezell, Dramaturg