But "Sojourn," an extended installation that opened on Friday, was actually inspired by a pre-Victorian needlework, Prudence Punderson's "First, Second and Last Scenes of Mortality," on loan here from the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford.
In another scene, her father, Richard Broinowski, Dr. Caldicott's brother and a former diplomat, attributes the urgency of his sister's message to a heightened sense of mortality.
"The sense of mortality homes in".
Virile – but with a sense of mortality.
"A sense of mortality, really," replies Alkan.
The dialogue in other scenes suggests the threat of mortality, including a moment when Mac has trouble singing due to his bad voice and says, "Don't feel sorry for me, Rosa Lee, I'm not dead yet".
The production's portentous atmospherics may be a trifle heavy-handed, but Mr. Esbjornson's emphasis on the ever-present specter of mortality — an early scene is interrupted by the distracting vision of a hangman practicing his gallows technique — underscores how closely linked sex and death are in this peculiar play.
Learning (elsewhere) that Watteau had frequent bouts of ill health and died at age 37, the reader can't help wondering whether his sickly constitution didn't somehow color his work, darkening his interpretation of the scenes he depicted, imposing an awareness of mortality and decay on lovers who might otherwise have been portrayed as carefree and embarking on happiness ever after.
As Serebryakov, Mr. McGuire contributes one of the more fully rounded portraits, and is unexpectedly moving in the scene in which Serebryakov confesses his fear of mortality.
Themes of mortality and ecological catastrophe bulk out a slim plot, and while some scenes feel overblown, Butler nicely captures the likes of floorboards "dark and serious enough to be part of a musical instrument".
