Featuring
Jessica Hecht
as Sarah, with
Ben Edelman
& Zane Pais
thru
march 19
LETTERS FROM
MAX
, a ritual
Written by
Sarah Ruhl
Based on the book by Sarah Ruhl and Max Ritvo
Directed by
Kate Whoriskey
Jonathan George
Joan Marcus
The poet Max Ritvo, who was 25 when he died of cancer in 2016, knew exactly the impression he did not want to make if he and the playwright Sarah Ruhl ever cobbled together a book of their correspondence. He recoiled at the possibility that it would come across like “a Lifetime movie story of poor cancer boy and his wise, brilliant, loving mentor ministering to his heart and mind through every mortal peril and petty crisis.”
“a Sacrament of Grief,
and a Comedy.”
– The New York Times
Signature Theatre presents the world premiere production of MacArthur Fellow Sarah Ruhl’s Letters from Max, directed by Kate Whoriskey, based on the book by Sarah Ruhl and Max Ritvo (Milkweed Editions). Ruhl adapts the 2018 epistolary book Letters from Max: A Poet, a Teacher, a Friendship, “a resonant and profound contribution from two fully formed artists to the literature of illness” (Slate), into a lyrical hybrid work that flows between full-hearted letters, poetry, music, and dialogue.
With Letters from Max, a ritual, Ruhl shares a personal correspondence, in the various forms it assumes between two people fervently pursuing, and offering one another the generosity of, higher expression. In these notes, verses, and utterances, her former student, the late poet Max Ritvo (Four Reincarnations), openly discusses terminal illness and tests poetry’s capacity to put to words what otherwise feels ineffable.
Joan Marcus
Director Kate Whoriskey
guides the cast with characteristic compassion and wit."
“One of the most adventurous playwrights working today.”
– The New York Times
– The New York SUN
Ye Fan for The New York Times
“Amazing!
the performers tap into something almost
ethereal in their delivery.” – TheaterMania
Joan Marcus
The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
“
The design, by Marsha Ginsberg, also has the feeling of an altar, which befits the play’s subtitle, a Ritual. Sarah Ruhl’s play dramatizes her friendship with the poet Max Ritvo. It gives you an extremely close perspective on the experience of
knowing and then losing him."
A home for storytellers. A space for all.
Signature Theatre's world premiere production of Letters from Max is supported by New York Life.
Letters from Max is also supported by the Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and is the recipient of The Edgerton Foundation Award for New Plays.