Lenox — Past and present collide in Stacey Isom Campbell’s compelling new play, “1999,” which opened its world premiere run at WAM Theatre in an “adroitly mounted production.” The layered narrative jumps between 2019 and a pivotal year for Oscar-winning filmmaker Emma Middleton (Zoe Laiz): 1999, a time of coercion and silence that predated the #MeToo movement.
When a student (Zurie Adams) challenges Emma’s film class curriculum over a predatory filmmaker, the play explores the cost of ambition, complicity through silence, and whether celebrated art can be separated from its “monstrous” creator. Directed by Genee Coreno, the production successfully juggles these complex, timely issues of trust and betrayal, with Laiz holding the center in an “effectively considered performance.” The resulting drama insists that in Campbell’s world, human truths are anything but simple.