We Should Meet in Air (Review)

Sylvia Plath called me last night. We spoke like old friends, catching each other up on lives that had been moving way too fast. It was her birthday and she was thinking about filing for a divorce. I had just finished making dinner and was wrapping up work emails. We spent thirty short minutes talking about families and poems and fears with such candor and ease — I was genuinely sad when it came time to hang up and say goodbye.

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Which, I imagine, is just a shadow of how creator Stepy Kamei feels about her latest collaboration with They Played Productions, We Should Meet in Air. Framed as a phone call from Plath on her 30th (and final) birthday, We Should Meet in Air is a tribute to Plath’s role as Kamei’s spiritual and artistic lighthouse. “Sylvia Plath was my guide for the first 30 years of my life,” says Kamei, who turns 30 later this year. “Now, I’m about to outlive her — it’s greatly intimidating.” Appropriately, We Should Meet in Air serves as a farewell to clarity for both Kamei and her deftly-voiced Plath. Both women face an unknown future. Each asks, “what happens next?”

And that’s what makes this jewel of a show shine. Kamei understands that everyone has faced, will face, or is facing their own crossroads. Her empathy for both Plath and her single-person-per-show audience balances this piece beautifully, making it an elegant example of immersive audio at its finest.

— Leah Davis, New England Correspondent

We Should Meet in Air, $30; Remote (Telephone or Discord); through April 30

Editor’s Note: This review originally appeared in the April 12, 2022 edition of the Review Rundown.