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It s too soon for meta-Zoom.
Feel the Spirit, the latest production from Berkeley s ever-adventurous Shotgun Players is an agonizingly of-the-moment, tailored-for-teleconferencing commission by playwright Noelle Viñas, expressly written in the form of online video chats and gatherings. The three main chatters are the new young pastor, Gabrielle (Vero Maynez) and two senior board members (Jean Forman, Fred Pitts) of a small, long-established church which has moved its services to Zoom in light of the pandemic.
An overarching theme that the trio continually returns to and one of the few they all agree on is the inability of teleconferencing to replicate the meaningful nuances of in-person conversation, let alone mass congregation of the sort one finds in both church and theater.