The pandemic and its aftermath got the people at One Year Lease Theatre company thinking about grief. “Wake’” is the fruit of their ruminations. As one might expect, it is serious and often difficult piece because of the subject matter. Unlike more traditional approaches, “Wake” is an experiment in movement, acting and music that weaves various sketches together to show various facets of grief and its place in our lives. It comes to no definite conclusions; it merely exposes the audience to different aspects of grief and grieving, allowing them to draw whatever meaning they can from it.

The characters are not named. They are listed in the program simply as A (Brooke Shilling), B (Alex J. Gould), C (Akiyaa Wilson), D (Cristina Pitter), E (Christina Bennett Lind) and Poet (Adesola Osakalumi). A is mourning the loss of her mother, and B spends most of the show trying to cheer her up and mostly failing at it. C engages the audience in a daytime talk-show approach to crying in such a way that the voice does not fail, and a great many audience members joined in. D plays both a baby and an old person, and her roles are probably the most enlightening. E opens and closes the show with expositions on grief. Poet recites about his encounters with Grief personified.

If this seems unstructured and lacking in a rigid story-telling framework, that is because it is exactly that. Rather than a script crafted as a cohesive whole where there is a clear beginning, middle and end, a clear conflict and some kind of resolution, this is a patchwork of scenes and acting class exercises in service of an exploration of grief.

Jom Hunting’s set is an antisceptic white wall with a white bench and white boxes moved around to serve various purposes, including catching water from a shower head in the ceiling. It gives the project a timeless and placeless-ness that suits the script.

Director Ianthe Demos opens the production with Rinde Eckhart and Ren playing ambient music as the audience enters. They remain on stage throughout, and their performance adds an important dimension to the action. In particular, I was struck by Ren’s creativity in playing both a bowl of water with a straw and a plastic child’s toy that expands and contracts making a noise along the way. Her violin is delightful. Eckhard’s soft drumming and use of ukelele and accordion were surprisingly effective, and in the case of the latter, avoided everything that makes it an instrument I dislike.

What Shilling and her playwright partner Leon Ingulsrud have intended here seems to be almost a Socratic dialogue with the audience. The performers ask questions and raise issues but never offer anything definitive beyond that introduction. Instead, the audience is invited to consider the points raised and questions asked.

The show demands that the audience engage in ways that more commercial fare does not. For that reason, its appeal is limited. It is nothing like the musical revivals that fill the Broadway theaters, pre-packaged and familiar. Its approach is far from familiar (but there is a universality to it as we all mourn and grieve), and it takes work to access all that is on offer. More than one member of the audience probably left wondering just what it was that they just saw. But for those who dig into the show actively rather than as passive viewers, there is something here worthwhile.

Running Time: 70 minutes without intermission

“Wake” runs at 59E59 Theaters in Manhattan through November 23, 2025. For tickets and more information visit the theater’s site.