Mona Pirnot in I Love You So Much I Could Die. Photo: Jenny Anderson
Mona Pirnot’s autobiographical solo show I Love You So Much I Could Die, centered on a real-life crisis that floored her a few years back, might not be the most therapeutic choice for anyone currently caught up in a similar struggle. Then again, it could prove salutary. Theatrically it’s fascinating – but also somewhat frustrating.
Set designer Mimi Lien’s bare-brick-wall set couldn’t be any more austere: desk, lamp, laptop, mike, chair, acoustic guitar waiting on its stand – a spare array clustered center stage before the theatre’s massive bare brick wall.
Author/performer Pirnot slips down a side aisle and onto the stage, keeping her back to the audience – not only while entering, but for the entire hour-plus-long performance. We will not see her face until the curtain call. And we will not hear her speaking – only singing, five songs which she composed while in crisis mode. Music director Will Butler (of Arcade Fire fame and more recently Stereophonic) arranged the songs, which she’ll direct to the back wall (not always audibly, despite Mikhail Fiksel’s and Noel Nichols’ sensitive sound design); he also contributed the organ chords underlying Pirnot’s closing sarabande.
The laptop delivers the accompanying monologue, using a text-to-speech tool in a masculine register. If you’re not familiar with the effect – director Lucas Hnath, Pirnot’s spouse, has been experimenting with live/recorded amalgams as a playwright ever since The Thin Place – the result can be a bit disorienting.
The uninitiated may initially imagine that they’re listening to the rather chipper laments of a depressed young male. He – or perhaps them would be more appropriate here – tries various approaches to boost his mood: Zoom therapy groups (all widely off the mark); service to others (via a God’s Love We Deliver program burnished by celebrity donor names); and a very basic technique, in which the idea is to stop churning and just name every object in sight. “Bodega, T-Mobile, McDonalds” has a captivating triplet rhythm to it.
As Pirnot’s quest continues, we get glimpses of the precipitating event, which she keeps sufficiently nonspecific but nonetheless gripping. We do manage to gather that a close family member was disastrously affected in the early days of Covid. Even as Pirnot’s grief and panic perseverate, lighting designer Oona Curley gradually lowers the wattage in counterpoint. By the end, Pirnot and audience are left literally in the dark, but for a glowing screen, a dim desk lamp, and a tiny blue amp light.
One can only hope that creating and performing this unusual work will help the creator come to terms with feelings we have all grappled with, sometimes to a paralyzing degree. Pirnot is acting, if not in the traditional theatrical sense. She is doing something, anything, to address her despair. Her bravery may inspire fellow sufferers fortunate enough to bear witness.
I Love You So Much I Could Die opened February 14, 2024, at New York Theatre Workshop and runs through March 9. Tickets and information: nytw.org
