At a little after 5 p.m. last Thursday, a jury in New York found former president Donald Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Immediately, my phone was flooded with messages about the court’s ruling—from news apps, my family, friends, and coworkers. Some cheered. Others wondered if a guilty verdict really meant anything for someone like Trump. Others still expressed concern for the safety of the jurors.
I received these alerts en route to see the Atlantic Theater Company’s production of The Welkin by playwright Lucy Kirkwood. (This staging marks the work’s American debut after premiering at London’s National Theatre in 2020.) Inside the Linda Gross Theater, housed within a former church in Chelsea, the cast was warming up before their 7 p.m. curtain when the production manager rushed in to tell them the news.
“There are aware and concerned citizens in our cast,” says Sandra Oh, who appears in the play as Lizzy Luke, a defiant midwife. “There’s no way that we are not influenced by everything that is going on in the world.” And indeed as many theatergoers noted during intermission, The Welkin made for richly apt viewing while a real-world trial unfolded.