‘We’re all on constantly shifting sands’: the play capturing life during the US midterm elections

Playwright Richard Nelson’s acclaimed Rhinebeck Panorama series returns for another timely look at the fictional Apple family living in a divided America

Richard Nelson learned a great lesson, cliched as it is, late in his writing career: the thing you toss off without overthinking can end up being some of your life’s greatest work. In the program notes for We’ll See, the latest in what has become a 12-play series, he admits he used to view the plays as “disposable, because of their being tied to a given time and place”.

Every November from 2010–2013, Nelson checked in on the fictional Apple family in upstate New York during elections and important national anniversaries, with each play set on the day of its premiere and mostly starring the same cast.