Annunciation
Word for Word's Production of Lauen Groff's Fine Short Story
By: Victor Cordell - Jun 24, 2025
A young, unidentified woman from a dysfunctional family graduates a New England college with no family or friends present. Seeing no clear path to the future in her current situation, she drives west leaving no forwarding information behind, and not stopping until she reaches the Golden Gate.
This is Word for Word’s sterling production of Lauren Groff’s Annunciation, with an outstanding ensemble cast and an often frenetic production directed by Joel Mullennix that ensures pace and action in a narrative heavy on exposition. It is the story of The Woman’s hard scrapple existence as she tries to gain a toehold on financial independence, starting from scratch. So desperate is she that at a youth hostel in San Francisco, she pinches food supplies left behind by guests for the hostel. And when she starts working, she grabs anything available from food trays at meetings.
Having seen previous performances and even having chatted with her, I knew to expect professional work from Rosie Hallett. However, I was unprepared for how she confidently commanded the stage in a huge part as The Woman, virtually on cue non-stop for nearly 90 minutes. Although very demanding, Hallett’s role is more as a raconteur than an actor with comparatively little range in affect. Perhaps her greatest deviation from neutral emotion is when she sneers with disgust as a colleague at a meeting snares a bagel that she hoped to pocket for her next meal. Most of the humor and frenzy are given to the other characters, and in part, The Woman is a straight man/woman/person/whatever to five comic actors.
When The Woman finds a temporary job in Redwood City and housing in a guest cottage in Mountain View, she stabilizes enough that two people will have recurring involvement in her life. Her wise mentor but still young co-worker, Anaïs (a guarded Molly Rebekka Benson), is a mystery woman who lives with her preschool daughter in a van, even though she is working and can afford to donate $1,000 to a charlatan televangelist preacher.
The Woman’s landlady, Griselda (Patricia Silver, charter member of Word for Word), lives on a large plot of valuable land, yet picks scraps like an unfinished jar of honey from neighbor’s trash. Full of fanciful tales of time spent with the likes of Andy Warhol, David Bowie, and more, if believable, Griselda’s earlier life was fantastisch, as she would say in her native German. The Woman gains more control over her future after working for a while, but sad incidents occur with both Griselda and Anaïs, her main links to humanity.
Many sparkling, high energy vignettes accent the narrative, with props and characters in ever-changing costumes shot from the wings like cannon balls. A toreador and bull flash across the stage. Celebrities appear and disappear in an instant. Young Griselda briefly basks in the sun on a yacht. Younger women are generally played with verve by Monica Rose Slater, while older women are mostly played by an also highly animated JoAnne Winter (WfW Artistic Director) or Benson.
Brennan Pickman-Thoon plays the male ensemble parts plus one other. If you think back to some meta-theatrical movie that you’ve seen, you may remember an acting teacher having students do something ridiculous such as acting like a dog. Well, this is a rare case where that training is actually put to use. With only the costumery aid of furry paws with claws, Pickman-Thoon amazes in his complex characterization of a 200-pound English mastiff, from romping enthusiasm to hopeless despair as he tries but is unable to bark as his voice box has been removed.
I have collected a few opinions concerning the broader arc of the story. There is considerable disagreement, not on the facts, but in interpretation and conclusion. Some view this as a coming of age in which unpleasant obstacles are vanquished by The Woman, and much of the sorrow that occurs is the reality of life. She survives and succeeds. And while she previously regretted turning too much away from life, she has embraced it more in her new environs.
Others feel, despite the light touch in much of the production, that the events are relentlessly depressing and that the protagonist doesn’t fully escape her demons. Half empty? Half full? In any case, the story is provocative and engaging, and the production is energetic and powerful.
At this point, I wonder if those who aren’t familiar with Word for Word realize that this essay has not been a review of a play per se. The production is a fully staged and acted short story with no changes to the text. If the words in the original prose read “she states” or “she looks longingly at the billowing clouds,” an actor, selected by the director as most appropriate, will speak those exact words. This is what WfW has done since its inception in 1993 with remarkable results. Particular kudos are due the director of any of these works, as a host of decisions not faced in a play make this a more complex undertaking.
Short stories set for the stage opens up a whole new dimension in performance to theater goers. The members of the company may know better, but my research has not revealed another company anywhere that shares Word for Word’s mission. It's great to have them with us in one of the country’s premier regions for theater.
Annunciation, a performed short story written by Lauren Groff and published by New Yorker Magazine, is produced by Word for Word and Z Space, and plays at Z Below, 450 Florida Street, San Francisco, CA through July 13, 2025.