Review: Oratorio for Living Things Returns, as Glorious as Ever

One measure of a masterpiece is how it can yield hidden depths on subsequent viewings. Heather Christian’s Oratorio for Living Things made its world premiere in 2022, and I was dazzled and moved by it then. It has now returned off-Broadway as part of the newly minted MacArthur “genius grant” fellow’s residency at Signature Theatre. For those who missed it three years ago, it’s certainly a must-see. But for those who caught it then and are contemplating another visit, rest assured that not only are its glories undimmed, but there is even more to appreciate a second time around.

An “oratorio” is a musical form similar to opera, the crucial difference being that oratorios usually have less staging (George Frideric Handel’s Messiah is the most famous example). Historically, oratorios have also tended toward sacred subjects. Christian taps into that spiritual vein, but for her that’s not fresh thematic territory. Her 2017 work Animal Wisdom took the form of a requiem for the dead, while the title of her most recent Terce: A Practical Breviary referred to a traditional mid-morning service. What distinguishes Oratorio from those two is its larger scale. In Christian’s program note, she describes this work as a “rumination on … this holy thing … Time” as it applies to all life on earth, from the smallest single-celled organism to the biggest human.

Christian matches her epic ambition with a score that embraces a wide variety of harmonic and vocal approaches. Stylistically, the music ranges from mournful threnodies to high-spirited gospel chants, usually accompanied by chamber underscoring (with six instrumentalists performing music orchestrated by 12 people, including Christian and music director, cast member, and co-conductor Ben Moss), but with occasional dips into a cappella. Though much of the music is tonal, Christian tosses in bits of atonality, especially during the final third, when she tackles humanity’s capacity for violence. And the vocal writing among the 12-member ensemble veers from unison and overlapping choruses to wordless wailing and spoken-word testimonies.

Oratorio is broken up into three sections, the first of which considers time on a quantum scale, the second time on a human level, the third on the cosmic. The first section features numbers dramatizing biological processes like photosynthesis and DNA replication. When it comes to humanity in the second section, Christian sets verbatim memories from anonymous voicemails to music at one point, with different performers singing different anecdotes at the same time. And when she ventures beyond the earthly in the third section, she drops music entirely and has performers speak to us, even beckoning us to stand in silence at one point, in a gesture of humility, an acknowledgment of how small we collectively are in the universe.

Not all of this is immediately clear in the moment, especially since many of the words are in Latin. Only after the show are we are handed a QR code to access the libretto with English translations, upon which one can fully appreciate the lyrical intricacies.

Even at its most obscure, however, director Lee Sunday Evans makes sure to keep the show’s emotional and philosophical essences comprehensible throughout. Memorable stage images abound. A white cloudlike ball begins close to the ground in the middle of Krit Robinson’s reconfigured in-the-round scenic and environmental design, slowly rising through the first section until it reaches the ceiling by the time the second section begins.

Though shades of blue make up much of Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew’s lighting design, she comes up with an especially astonishing effect in the third section, when at one point the performers are lit in a way that makes them all look monochrome. Costume designer Márion Talán de la Rosa keeps even Christian’s most whimsical flights of fancy down to earth by clothing the ensemble in elegant everyday attire. Even when the voices blend, sound designer Nick Kourtides makes sure we can at least pick out snatches of what different performers are singing at the same time.

Ultimately, none of this would work without the 12-member cast bringing total conviction to their performances. To single out one performer over another would be to go against the show’s collective spirit; what’s most remarkable about them are the ways they seem to emotionally connect with the material, however specific or generalized, in their own ways. That diversity of approach and experience also applies to how one receives not only Christian’s work itself, but the universe in which we all live. Oratorio for Living Things remains one of the most beautiful, profound, and altogether astonishing musical-theater works of recent years.