First and Last
Directed by Ephraim Birney
409 West 14th Street, Manhattan, NYC
November 10-22, 2026
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| Adam Elliott and Kyla Schoer. Photo by Geve Penaflor |
In Adam Elliott's funny and incisive two-hander
First and Last, Morris, an aspiring writer working as a New York City rental agent when we first meet him, reveals that he has always been interested in time as a "construct," which means that it might be manipulated to become a "powerful tool that we use to advance ourselves." Writers, of course, do manipulate time–not only in the sense that they control its passage within a narrative but also in the sense that a written work creates a sort of eternal present to which the reader can endlessly return in the act of reading (or, in the case of, say, a film or play, watching).
First and Last, currently at Chelsea's artXnyc in its first fully staged production, keenly probes what happens, or fails to happen, to people, their selves and their relationships, with the passage of time.
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| Adam Elliott and Kyla Schoer. Photo by Geve Penaflor |
At the opening of the production, original music by
Andrew M. Edwards gives way to the noises of city life and the creaking of an elevator (part of
Emi Verhar's evocative sound design) as Morris (played by Elliott) and potential tenant Maeve (Kyla Schoer) make their way to the Fort George apartment that the former is showing the latter. The unit is not in itself especially impressive–
John Pete Hardy's scenic design perfectly captures the grimy white walls and cramped, aging cabinets and appliances of many a NYC rental–and Maeve's debate over whether or not to take it opens the door to less lease-oriented conversation. Maeve, overcoming a bit of resistance from Morris, learns about his desire to write, even brainstorming with him a little, and Morris learns that she works for a successful but often broke international artist and is herself an aspiring painter. It also turns out that both of them are at precarious points in their lives, and Maeve admits that she is desperate for somewhere to live–but still proposes certain stipulations if she is to consider this particular apartment. In the next scene, we have moved ahead five years from the show's 2003 starting point, and we become witness to the branching effects of that first, chance meeting between the two (without saying too much, the movement forward in time also feels in part like a move from Coward to Albee).
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| Kyla Schoer and Adam Elliott. Photo by Geve Penaflor |
Both Maeve and Morris reckon with questions of maturation–the eternal present of art may not in fact be a great model for people and their relationships, and it's not particularly clear, for example, that Morris applies his theoretical ideas of using time as a tool for advancement his own actual life–and control: of their art, of their desires and fulfillment, and of the direction of their lives. There is something simultaneously close-ended and cyclical about the idea of first and last month's rent gestured to in the play's title, much like there is in the relation of the story that Morris relays about the couple who previously occupied the apartment and the play's own central narrative. A stain on the apartment's floor, related to those previous tenants, constitutes a haunting of present by past as well as a bridge between them. While, as Morris suggests when he first meets Maeve, time may entail suffering,
First and Last also suggests that what has passed can still be celebrated–endings are, after inevitable over time, since time requires action to "exist," and action is change, whether we are talking about the movement of subatomic particles or the decision of whether or not to have children.
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| Adam Elliott and Kyla Schoer. Photo by Geve Penaflor |
The props–the bulky Dell laptop with a clasp on the lid, the bin of VHS tapes, and so on–do great job of manipulating the audience's perception of time, summoning the first decade of the 2000s, much like Joey Koo's lighting helps to manifest a change in mood at several key points in the show. Elliott and Schoer's compelling and multidimensional performances ensure that the audience is invested in Morris and Maeve from the first, with the initial, seeming contrast of chill broker and anxious apartment hunter giving way to something much more nuanced and complex. Schoer as Maeve's painful admission of a pattern of self-denial for the sake of someone else and Elliott as Morris's extended, ultimately melancholy comparison of romantic relationships to books offer standout moments of both writing and performance among the play's wider landscape of funny, authentic, well-crafted dialogue. Think of a seat at
First and Last like an apartment in a desirable neighborhood and grab it while you can.
-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards
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