The 2016 election and the COVID pandemic: the two major moments of the past eight years that are irresistible to dramatists but are notoriously tricky to get right. I have to admit that whenever I see either mentioned in a synopsis in my program, I get that involuntary stomach clench — will this be heavy-handed, sentimental, too close to its subject? In two journeys in alternating solo performances at Playwrights Horizons, Gabriel Kahane, armed with a piano and a cozy sweater, boldly but humbly runs right toward both events, singing himself on some of the expected tropes along the way, but steering, eventually, away from the expected toward larger self-reflection. In Magnificent Bird, which is encouraged to be seen as the first act, Kahane describes his experience of trying to detox from the internet, a…
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