It can take tragedy to gather us in.
With this play and The White Devil, Webster took tragedy to a new level in the psychology of evil, actual horror and callousness.
For all its simple formal outlines, "Call the Midwife" takes tragedy seriously, dwelling in the promise that medicine might treat human suffering as something essentially spiritual, not merely mechanical.
It's unfortunate though that it takes tragedy to bring us together in ways that celebratory moments don't seem to.
Wouldn't it be something if it didn't take tragedies to remind us of that?
I don't want it to take tragedies like this to bring us together.
While I wish it didn't take tragedies like this to bring such conversations to the mainstream, I am thankful that the dialogue has been amped up and that people seem to be listening.
But even such echoes can come off as too neat and literal, taking mythic tragedy and transforming it into a drama about post-traumatic stress disorder.
What happens if you take the tragedy out of a tragedy?
On the edge of professional disaster, she took on tragedy queens and Victorian damsels, and toppled right over into the abyss.
SOMETIMES it takes a tragedy.
