“England’’ is a roundabout meditation both on mortality and on the moral cost of going to extreme lengths to deny that mortality. It emphasizes the existential importance of seeing, a notion underscored by the setting of the first half of last night’s performance of “England’’: a fourth-floor gallery at the ICA.
Wearing beatific smiles, Crouch and fellow performer Hannah Ringham chatted about the photo portraits on the walls as if they were a couple of docents, moving freely through the audience.
(In program notes to “England,’’ Crouch observes that theater and visual arts both contain “the chaotic element of the audience and the unpredictability of its reception.’’)
Yet the pace soon quickened and the stakes climbed. Crouch had begun the evening with a strangely direct and heartfelt remark that became a recurrent refrain: “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here.’’ Was he speaking to us? Well, yes and no. Ringham added, in what would become another refrain: “You saved my life.’’
The tale that emerged over the next hour was of a gravely ill person - a man? a woman? - who receives a lifesaving heart transplant thanks to connections of his/her wealthy boyfriend, a globe-trotting art collector. The gender of the recipient is not made clear; Crouch and Ringham both speak as that person.
After the transplant, the recipient struggles with “getting used to the idea of someone else inside you.’’ But there is an even starker challenge ahead, as devastating questions arise about the circumstances under which the heart was donated. “England’’ will leave you with unsettling questions of your own, and when theater can achieve that, who needs distance?
Don Aucoin can be reached at aucoin@globe.com.
