What I liked
Loved the lighting and sound design transitions, the transformation from character to character and how Ava inhabited their full person, down to the handwriting. I also liked the addition of addressing the audience as Ava and personalizing it, also emphasizing how this epidemic of gun violence has not stopped and literally happened again while she was developing the piece.
What I didn't like
I couldn’t really see or hear the 3rd person (Columbine?)’s experience because it was at the front of the stage and towards the end, the sound overpowered the dialogue. Just wish I could hear it uninterrupted.
My overall impression
I Hear So Extremely Loud was a riveting one-person show, giving life to a type of shared pain and trauma that lives inside so many of us. It was shocking and heartbreaking all at once, talking about school shootings in a way that makes you feel even more for those who have experienced it directly. It needs to be seen by as many as possible, first, to be graced by Ava’s incredible performance, storytelling, and transformation from character to character, and second, to knock people out of complacency and into empathy. It is raw, it is personal, it will shake you to the core.
