Review: "Retrospective" Asks an Artist to See Himself

Retrospective

Written by T.J. Elliott

Directed by Gifford Elliott

Presented by Knowledge Workings Theater at AMT Theater

354 W 45th St., Manhattan, NYC

August 13-16, 2025

Clint consoling Rory.  L to R: Jeremiah Alexander, Mark Thomas McKenna, Adara Totino, Jasmine Dorothy Haefner. Photo by Marjorie Phillips Elliott
Thinking about the afterlife of art is not so unusual, but Retrospective, written and directed by father and son team T.J. Elliott and Gifford Elliott, respectively, instead focuses on the afterlife of the artist. For the play's Rory McGrory (Mark Thomas McKenna), the titular retrospective involves taking a new look at his relationship not only to his work as a painter but also to significant others (in both senses of the term) from his past and to his sense of self–and ultimately, to reconsider what really matters. Retrospective is making its New York debut along with four new musicals and seven other original plays as part of Broadway Bound Theatre Festival's (BBTF) 2025 Summer Festival line-up. BBTF, now in its ninth season and dedicated to playwrights and works that champion story, substance, and stagecraft, runs from July 24th through August 17th at AMT Theater.
Pippa (Adara Totino) inspired. Photo by Marjorie Phillips Elliott
Rory begins the play by expressing his disapproval of what he assumes is the postmodern irony of the quintet of blank canvases that share the stage with him. He is quickly joined by his poet ex-wife, Pippa (Adara Totino), a surprising development, since she has been dead for many years, that brings a second surprise: according to Pippa, the canvases are his own paintings; he just can't see them. Pippa also informs Rory that he too is deceased, an idea to which he is understandably resistant, preferring to believe that he is dreaming. That Pippa is telling the truth becomes harder to deny with the appearances of art critic Z (Jasmine Dorothy Haefner) and fellow painter Clint (Jeremiah Alexander), each of whom died in a tragic accident at different points in Rory's life. Helping to convince Rory is the fact that any untruths uttered in this liminal space beyond life have a visible negative effect on the people there–meaning that they can't lie to each other, but neither can they, as most people do in life, lie to themselves. It emerges that moving on from this space, which is monitored by the Sacred Wind, requires letting go of "malattachments," to use what Z reminds Pippa, who calls them "clogs," is the accepted term. Amidst this version of a gallery retrospective of Rory's work, complete with gift shop and audio commentaries by Z, lie clues to the clogs that connect Rory and these particular characters.
Rory (Mark Thomas McKenna) sees the light. Photo by Marjorie Phillips Elliott
Solutions that at first appear obvious–Rory's marriage to Pippa was characterized by what Pippa prefers to call her polyandry; Z wrote savage takedowns of Rory's art; and so on–turn out to be more complicated and more multidirectional than one first assumes. Rory, along with the audience, is pushed to contemplate how little of what causes the grievances, misunderstandings, and regrets that littler human lives really matters, particularly when seen from a position where even forgiveness, a matter for the living according to the play, no longer applies. What are the implications of accepting, as Z puts it, "The universe is nothing but trivia"? McKenna ably conveys Rory's self-important bitterness–which Z would say is characteristic of a certain breed of male artist, if not of males generally–and his struggle to come to terms with his circumstances, as well as with the concept of giving the same level of attention to other people as to color and composition; and the hippie-adjacent vibe fluid movement that Totino gives to Pippa makes for an effective juxtaposition. Haefner's feisty turn as Z creates a different but equally effective type of contrast with McKenna's Rory, and Alexander invests Clint with an easygoing, idiosyncratic energy in a winningly comic performance. The fact that the dead can't touch one another produces some funny visuals, as does the influence of the Sacred Wind, and the lighting design, by Kaye Loggins, uses rich color to excellent effect in marking multiple significant moments. The costume design subtly signals the time period when the various characters died, but it also makes a thematic point in having the color-obsessed Rory appear as the least colorful character, in jeans and a black t-shirt. Retrospective sums up a lot of its themes in a fantastic passage that uses as an analogy the contrast between the view in artistic perspective and that in an artistic retrospective. And then, fittingly, it sidesteps an easy, pat "happy ending" to challenge our perspective once again.

-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards

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