theater

Draupadi – Will My Spirit Live On?

mandy — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

On the heels of International Women’s Day, the Indo-American Arts Council in New York City hosted the North American premiere of a unique and thought-provoking Indian play called Draupadi – Will My Spirit Live On? Produced and conceptualized by Shivani Wazir Pasrich, and co-directed by Pasrich and Tina Johnson, Draupadi weaves a tale from the Hindu epic Mahabharata with an intense contemporary story of a woman battling her experience with sexual abuse. The play sheds light on the plight of many women suffering such abuse, connecting a mythological tale with a modern parallel, and delivers a mostly engaging experience.

The play extends the story of Draupadi (played by Pasrich), from her travails that were supposed to have triggered a great war, crossing centuries to meet Maaya (Charu Shankar) in modern day India. Draupadi is stuck between heaven and earth, pondering her fate and choices, and being guided by her confidant Lord Krishna. Maaya is a young housewife who is taken advantage of by her husband Arjun’s brother Kaurav, and is too afraid of societal taboos to fight for justice. Added into the mix is Krishna, who flits in and out of situations donning various avatars to help guide the two women in distress towards finding peace with their own respective scenarios.

One of the play’s greatest strengths is in its talented and accomplished cast. Pasrich as Draupadi exudes confidence and power in her quest for salvation and also helping Maaya out of her predicament. She does, however, remain angry throughout, thus affecting the depth of the character. Shankar plays Maaya with a dignified innocence and is quick to gain audience sympathy.

The most spirited performance comes from Dilip Shankar as Krishna, portraying a deity with an edge. He provides the comic relief in many tense scenes and dishes out ample doses of tough love that would come from any respected mentor, heavenly or human. Among the rest of the cast, Arjun Fauzdar as Maaya’s husband Arjun and Ashish Paliwal as Sukarna are both competent in their roles.

When asked about the genesis of the play, Pasrich explained, “It’s just essentially that, as women, we judge ourselves very harshly and we expect ourselves to perform so many different roles. And we do it happily with a smile. But at the end of the day we realize everybody’s going through the same kind of situation, our issues are similar, and there’s a great strength that you get out of that. So that was the reason to bring [Draupadi] into the current times because, if anyone’s had a difficult life, it’s Draupadi. So whoever today is having a tough time, it couldn’t be tougher than Draupadi’s life and if she moved on, so can everyone else.”

Draupadi – Will My Spirit Live On? is an important work of theatre for confronting through the arts an issue that plagues Indian society today. It is a show to be watched and lauded – such artistic confrontations of social plagues need only be encouraged.

Read the full review at The NRI

Written by: Pulkit Datta, April 19th 2011

Marie and Bruce (4/8/11)

brittany — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Theatre Row

New York, New York

When I was a kid I used to stay out of sight when my parents fought, fearful that their vitriol would extend to me. But I always listened, eager to understand the conflict. So it is with Marie and Bruce, Wallace Shawn’s look at the most dysfunctional of dysfunctional relationships.

The play begins even before a word of dialogue is uttered. As the audience enters the theater, Marie (a furious and pained Marisa Tomei) and Bruce (a disaffected and cool Frank Whaley) are lying on a large, ill-made bed in center stage. He’s asleep. Marie, however, is awake and the audience sees her tossing and turning, blowing her nose, touching her forehead to check for fever, and getting up stretch and smoke. Her angst is visible as Bruce softly snores, apparently unbothered by his wife’s unease.

As morning dawns, Marie turns to the audience and confides that she is planning to leave her mate. Her ire is apparent in her language: Bruce is addressed as a “fucking pig,” a “goddamn worthless piece of shit,” and a “cocksucking turd.” We also learn that they’ve had a “a miserable summer.” Neither has a job—although as the play unfolds, money doesn’t seem to be a problem—and Marie has been afflicted with some sort of physical malaise that she likens to the flu.

As Marie rants about Bruce’s inadequacies, he seems unfazed and we soon realize that theirs is a waltz that is repeatedly danced. Like couples that bicker endlessly, Marie and Bruce are locked in a routine that is both senseless and compelling.

The three-scene, one-act play—it is one hour and forty minutes long—goes from the bedroom, to a nine-person dinner party rife with neurotic conversation, to a small café where the couple’s banter is clearly well honed. Both are verbally abusive. At one point, Bruce tells Marie that she “can be sort of a cunt” while she lambastes him as someone she neither respects nor loves.

It’s horrible to watch and must be far worse to live.

First performed in London’s The Royal Court Theatre in 1979, Marie and Bruce crossed the ocean a year later, arriving on U.S. shores in 1980 and garnering mixed reviews.

The New Group’s revival of the piece is beautifully acted. Furthermore, the staging, set design, lighting, and special effects are exceptional. That said, the play is depressing and audience members leave the theater thanking their lucky stars that they don’t have to contend with Marie and Bruce in real life.

What’s more, as a cautionary tale of love gone sour, Marie and Bruce makes for a harrowing, often cringe-worthy, evening. Worse, while the rancor expressed by each member of this lovelorn pair pulls at the viewer’s heartstrings, the play is ultimately an unsatisfying peak at a horrid relationship. One can only wonder why The New Group dusted the play off and brought it to Theatre Row.

Marie and Bruce runs through May 7, 2011 at Theatre Row.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, April 12th 2011

Spy Garbo (3/6/11)

brittany — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

3-LD Art and Technology Center

New York, New York

Sheila Schwartz’s Spy Garbo, an innovative multi-media production, takes place in history’s limbo, the eternal resting place of three prominent twentieth century political players. The first is Generalissimo Francisco Franco Bahamonde, played by Steven Rattazzi with a perfect mix of pomp, arrogance, and affability. The fascist leader of Spain from 1939 to 1975, Franco is displeased by his now-tarnished image and presents himself as the eternal victim, a peacemaker who did everything in his power to remain neutral during the war, a misunderstood genius who should be lionized rather than condemned.

His quest for adulation brings him into contact with two additional attention seekers. The first is Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, enacted by Steven Hauck with the stiff upper lip and rigid bearing often associated with the Third Reich. At one time, Canaris served as Hitler’s Military Intelligence Chief, but his ultimate betrayal of the Fuhrer led the Gestapo to execute him in 1945.

Franco’s second competitor is Harold Adrian Russell, aka Kim Philby—played by the excellent Chad Hoeppner with brash charm that slowly dissolves as he descends into alcoholism—another double agent who ultimately defected to the former Soviet Union where he penned the 1968 bestseller, My Secret War.

Hovering over the three is the never seen but frequently referenced Spy Garbo, a real-life Spanish double agent—identified post war as Juan Pujol Garcia—whose espionage served both Britain and Germany.

There’s much to recommend Spy Garbo, not the least being the 130-foot video screen that surrounds the audience. Throughout the production, archival footage weaves images of Hitler, Franco, and 1940’s film stars into a seamless background that is simultaneously eerie and intriguing.

“Film makes history immortal,” Franco muses as he turns toward the screen and it is clear that that he longs for the adoration that seems exclusive to movie icons. As Philby and Canaris join Franco’s lament, a horrifying truth is revealed: while most of us will recall the names of film legends decades after their passing, few will recall the spies or military strategists who orchestrate our theaters of war.

And that’s the problem with Spy Garbo. Although audiences without deep knowledge of World War II can certainly understand the overall thrust of the play, those lacking a thorough grasp of the period will miss the nuances of the production and will likely find the dialogue—sequential monologues by each actor—overly diffuse. Indeed, while it is fascinating to see the three men vie for a spot on history’s top ten list, the play would have been more successful had it framed the action with hard facts about the war.

A short narration at the beginning, for example, might have offered an overview, explaining a bit about the era. In addition, a narrator might also have linked the global conflict of sixty years ago to contemporary warfare, bridging the distance between then and now.

That said, Spy Garbo is a provocative look at the male ego and a well-directed, beautifully acted, and well-staged production. And, since the historical record is typically written by the victor, Spy Garbo underscores the subjectivity of truth, reminding us that who does the telling is as important as what we’re told about the when, where, and how of life’s ongoing dramas.

Spy Garbo will run through April 11, 2011 at 3-LD Art and Technology Center, 80 Greenwich Street, New York, NY. Tickets are $30 and can be ordered by calling the box office at 212.352.3101.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, March 20th 2011

A World Apart (2/4/2011)

mandy — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 09:00:00 +0000

The Flea Theater

New York, New York

As Susan Mosakowski’s A World Apart opens, Mother Augustina, an abbess in a Cistercian monastery, is deeply engrossed in reading a religious text. Once interrupted, she explains that she is searching for answers to a host of troubling questions. Doubts about all kinds of things have begun to creep in, she says. Take the issue of heaven and hell. Common assumptions posit one above and the other below us. But why?

“Heaven and hell do not have that kind of geography,” the abbess (beautifully performed by Antoinette LaVecchia) tells a stunned Sister Cornelia (played with graceful torment by Amelia Workman). “Maybe heaven is right next to us, shoulder to shoulder, or in front of us, or behind, and that anyone who wanted to go to heaven could be there in a minute, if only they had the desire. It’s all about desire.”

Ah yes, desire. When Father Daniel Byrne (an intense Andy Paris) arrives at the convent to lecture the sisters, he and Sister Augustina trade smoldering glances. Not only that, his presentation further ignites the uncertainty that Sister Augustina has been grappling with. She finds one query particularly provocative: “Are we doing more for others by being inside our monastic world, or should we be outside and active, a part of everyday life, a part of every life that needs us?”

In short order Father Byrne confides that he has decided to leave the priesthood and—surprise—after a few brief encounters he asks Sister Augustina to remove her wimple and join him. He presents the option matter-of-factly, as if it’s a no-brainer for her to renounce her vows and leave the cloistered, celibate life she’s led for decades. Much to the priest’s annoyance, the request provokes crises of faith and commitment in Augustina, crises that spill into the lives of the nuns in her care. So what to do?

While A World Apart might have delved into the roots of the Sister Augustina’s angst more deeply—for example, it’s hard to imagine that her lust had been completely dormant before Father Byrne’s arrival or that it took decades for her to become curious about world events—the play raises issues that continue to nag at the Catholic Church. To its credit, A World Apart does not offer an oversimplified resolution of these concerns. Is there a place for monastic life in the twenty-first century? Does requiring celibacy make sense today? You decide.

Lee Savage’s spare set and Mark Barton and Ryan Seelig’s lighting design create a haunting environment for this eighty-minute play. It’s a serious work with ample humor, delving into what it means to be mindful and make conscious choices. Well acted and resonant, A World Apart addresses the human need for authenticity, love, and meaning. In the end, regardless of whether Sister Augustina’s religious order chooses to remain cloistered or opts to frolic in the muck of earthly delights, Father Byrne’s admonition rings true: “Sometimes you have to go outside to get more on the inside.” At the same time, what he doesn’t say is also true: Sometimes quiet contemplation and solitude can be enough.

*A World Apart will run through February 26, 2011 at The Flea Theater in Manhattan. Tickets are $18 and can be ordered by calling 212.352.3101 or by going to theatermania.com.

Photo credit: Jim Baldassare

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, February 7th 2011

Blood From A Stone (1/22/2011)

brittany — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Acorn Theatre

New York, New York

Tommy Nohilly’s first play, Blood From A Stone, treads the familiar terrain of family dysfunction, zeroing in on the return of oldest son Travis [played with anguished complexity by Ethan Hawke] to the family’s ramshackle Connecticut home. What exactly ails this prodigal child is a mystery. We know that he is jobless, broke, single, and addicted to pain killers, but the demons that hover near him are never fully revealed. At first, the reasons he’s returned home are also unclear. Is he looking for solace? Hoping for a financial handout? Or does he truly want to see his parents and siblings?

As the play opens, Travis is in the living room schmoozing with his bedraggled mom [Ann Dowd] about the many problems besetting their nearest and dearest. They’re clearly comfortable with one another and as they fold laundry, we learn that Travis’ visit is intended to be a short stopover before he drives cross-country “to start over.” First, however, this eldest son intends to help his baby brother [played with a perfect blend of surface bravado and emotional terror by Thomas Guiry], a gambling addict now heavily in debt and in the throes of a marital break-up. Travis also makes clear that he’s in need of quality time with his mom, dad, sister [Natasha Lyonne], and former girlfriend [Daphne Rubin-Vega], a now-married mom.

Crisis after crisis looms. While there is some humor throughout the play, the shouting, stomping, and cursing that are this family’s M.O. make it hard to watch. Worse, Blood From A Stone says nothing new about the dynamics that simultaneously cleave people apart and hold them together. Indeed, while there is ample affection between the siblings and between each of the kids and their parents, why mother Margaret and father Bill [an apoplectic, continuously-raging Bill Clapp] have stayed together for umpteen years is anybody’s guess. In fact, their non-stop exchanges of vitriol are perplexing and awful.

The tension in the home is stomach churning, and one gets the sense that this is because of both political differences and family history. At one point Bill unleashes a racist rant, telling Travis that the U.S should turn Baghdad into “a fucking parking lot.” He verbally assails Osama Bin Laden, and while his comments elucidate his character, they do nothing to shed light on the tortured dance he, his wife, and kids have been doing for eons. Instead, the audience is privy only to his taunts, tirades, and violent outbursts. At the same time, Margaret’s proves that she is capable of giving as good as she gets, but to what end?

By the two-act play’s denouement, the audience has seen brilliant acting, a fantastic set evoking homey decrepitude, and a lot of fury, which, in a phrase, signifies nothing. It’s disappointing, to say the least.

In the end, Blood From A Stone confirms what we probably already knew, that love is not enough to quell deeply held hostilities or repair broken relationships. What’s more, it attests to the fact that the way family members interact needs to change before new ways of being can take root. Sadly, no one in Nohilly’s play seems ready to make that leap.

Blood From A Stone runs through February 5. Tickets are $60 and can be ordered by calling 212.239.6200 or going to TheNewGroup.org. The play is being performed at The Acorn Theater, 410 West 42 Street, New York, NY 10036.

Photo credit: Monique Carboni

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, January 24th 2011

Baby Universe (A Puppet Odyssey)

mandy — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 19:00:00 +0000

Baruch Performing Arts Center

Baby Universe, a one-hour, adult-themed puppet show, begins with a DJ from Apocalypse Radio announcing to the audience that he is ”broadcasting live from the darkest corner of the bunkers.” His tone conveys urgency as he reports that the program will include an interview with one of the last people alive. The situation, we’re told, is grim: “These are the last days. Nothing can keep death from us. The plants are scorched, the animals blistered…The seas? What seas…? Soon everything will perish.”

Using more than thirty puppets ranging in size from nine inches to nine feet, Baby Universe explores the imminent environmental catastrophe facing the earth’s inhabitants and questions whether anything can be done to stop this seemingly inevitable destruction. Special effects are in large supply—spectators are repeatedly stunned by flashing lights, the appearance of fire and smoke, and the sounds of crashing waves—as five onstage puppeteers, clad in gray spacesuits, their faces completely covered by enormous gas masks, manipulate their charges. It’s highly inventive and totally captivating.

Among the subjects explored is the notion of “baby universes,” human-generated black holes that scientists in Japan and Switzerland currently believe can lead to the development of alternative life forms. Baby Universe introduces the concept of scientifically generated “babies,” manufactured beings whose sole function is to attempt to create a new solar system. If they are successful, the play tells us, animal, plant, and human life will continue on another planet, far from our devastated earth.

Time, of course, is of the essence, and whether this can succeed or not depends on baby number 7001, a hand puppet, (Peter Russo provides the pitch-perfect voice, part whiny child, part messiah) who has been reared by an always-doting surrogate mother (voiced by Gwendolyn Warnock). Can this savior come through and protect the biosphere’s few remaining survivors? Or is it already too late?

As the performance progresses, it raises a plethora of controversial subjects, not the least of which is whether scientists are usurping the role of God. The matter is left for the audience to ponder, and the show smartly avoids heavy-handed moralizing on the matter. Still, in raising the issue it asks viewers to not only address the trashing of diverse ecosystems, but to think about what our behavior will mean for evolutionary development. It’s big stuff.

That said, Baby Universe is anything but ponderous. While heavy philosophical issues are touched upon, and serious themes regarding religion, science, and ecology are presented, the play is highly entertaining and often funny. There is ample shtick—including an almost-Vaudevillian moment in which 7001 discovers that he lacks a penis—as well as several musical digressions. Indeed, music by Norwegian composer Lars Petter Hagen adds tension and zest to the production. Similarly, the simple set designed by Naho Tatuishi, Joy Wang, Brett Jarvis, and Kate Leahy—movable scrims onto which images are continually projected—give the show an eerie feel.

Strange, moving, and intriguing, Baby Universe is a timely look at looming environmental catastrophe. There’s melancholy, tempered by hope, throughout. “Life is so fragile,” one of the puppets declares near the end of the production. “It’s the most beautiful thing I know.”

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, December 31st 2010

Hapgood

mandy — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 03:00:00 +0000

Phoenix Theatre Ensemble

Tom Stoppard’s 1988 espionage thriller, Hapgood, addresses the insanity of the Cold War by zooming in on a band of British spies. Alongside the CIA, the group engages in crosses and double-crosses, the end result being little more than a game of chicken.

Led by Mrs. Elizabeth Hapgood, AKA Betty, AKA Mother--played by actor Elise Stone with a perfect mix of sass and sadness—the reconnaissance team’s efforts are a showcase for three distinct plot lines: The juggling of employment and child rearing responsibilities for single mothers; the temptation of forbidden love; and the competitive race for scientific knowledge between the “free world” and the Communist bloc. While the first two themes are presented with straightforward punch, the latter is muddled, perhaps emblematic of the Cold War itself. As Hapgood says near the denouement of the play, “It’s them or us. We’re keeping each other in business. We should send each other Christmas cards.”

Indeed, the inanity of the spy effort is underscored as the two-act drama unfolds. Can anyone be trusted? Is it possible to know good people from bad? As the characters assess and then reassess one another, a host of preposterous, and often funny, mishaps occur. Hapgood’s associates—Ridley (Jason O’Connell), Merryweather (Brian Costello), and Kerner (Joseph Menino)—stomp, probe, and snoop, all the while trying to determine who among them is leaking strategic military secrets to Moscow. Unfortunately, despite terrific acting and wonderful staging, this element of the plot is confusing as it intertwines numerical data—supplemented by a host of algebraic and scientific formulae that are projected onto the stage’s back wall—into the dialogue. Yes, it’s illustrative of the secrets being pursued, but the long-winded repartee gets tiresome for non-scientifically inclined audience members.

Apparently, this was of little concern to Stoppard who reportedly became obsessed with particle physics when his son was studying the subject. “Stoppard saw in physics a metaphor for human nature,” the Playbill for Hapgood explains. “Does light operate like a bullet or a wave? The answer is both—depending on whether it’s being observed or not. So too people, who have different selves sharing the one body, which appear or disappear depending on who’s looking.”

Hapgood’s exploration of duality includes all the tricks of the international spy trade—or at least the ones one might find in a John Le Carre novel. There’s blackmail, entrapment, fraud, lying, and kidnapping. At the same time, there’s also kindness, collegiality, loyalty, and love between contending parties.

Some critics have found Hapgood dated, but while the Cold War is surely over, the ongoing international quest for domination and conquest of the Middle East and Africa makes espionage as relevant today was it was decades back. That said, I would have enjoyed Hapgood more had it been pared down, with a tightened script that shifted the focus to politics rather than mathematical and scientific jargon.

Stoppard had an answer for critics like me: “I must stop compromising my plays with this whiff of social application. They must be entirely untouched by any suspicion of usefulness,” he wrote in the late 1970s. Using that criterion, Hapgood fits the bill, turning the foreign policy foibles of world governments into something that is both absurd and mildly entertaining.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, December 19th 2010

A Man’s A Man

mandy — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Phoenix Theatre Ensemble

If playwright Bertolt Brecht were alive today, he’d likely blanch at the contemporary tendency to seek common ground with those whose ideologies are diametrically opposed to one’s own. His dozens of plays speak truth to power in daring, direct language and, while farce and sarcasm are employed, his repeated denunciations of colonialism, war, and militarism are boldly presented. A Man’s a Man (sometimes called Man Equals Man) was first staged in Dusseldorf and Darmstadt, Germany in 1926. Eighty-four years later, The Phoenix Theatre Ensemble’s beautifully-presented staged reading of the play is so relevant that the audience quickly forgets the age of the work.

Themes include the folly of armed conflict; the ways gender stereotypes are used to manipulate men and women into serving the Empire; and the ways youth are unscrupulously lured into patriotic service. Identity—whether we develop into thinking adults or order-following automatons—also comes into focus. The end result is riveting—full of wit, sass, and pointed jabs at the never-ending quest for land and resources that ensnares so many political regimes.

The action of A Man’s a Man follows a motley band of soldiers who belong to The Royal Imperial Army. In Kilkoa, India to guard—or perhaps loot—the Pagoda of the Yellow Monks, the play zeroes in on the Eighth Regiment, AKA The Scum—and what happens when one of their members, Jeraiah Jip, suddenly becomes unable to continue in Her Majesty’s armed forces. Since a Unit requires four men, the remaining three expect big trouble when Sergeant Fairchild, AKA Bloody Five [played by Grant Neale], arrives on the scene. Known for his fiery temper—Bloody earned his nickname after killing five Hindu prisoners—his underlings know that their superior will be apoplectic when, or if, he learns that Jip is gone.

In short order, Unit members devise a plan in which happy-go-lucky Galy Gay (Josh Tyson), “a man who can’t say no,” is hoodwinked into pretending to be the no-longer-present Mr. Jip. “One man is as good as another,” the soldiers quip, thrilled to have concocted so simple a solution to their conundrum. Gay is first promised cigars and beer for agreeing to go along with the deception; later, as they step up their brainwashing, the audience watches Gay morph into the perfect soldier—compliant, docile, and obedient.

The ten short scenes of A Man’s a Man, framed by a Prologue and Epilogue, move quickly, and include a bevy of rousing—and pitch-perfect, often hilarious—song-and-dance numbers. The nine characters, plus a keyboardist, are on stage at all times. They read with tremendous force, unapologetically delivering Brecht’s none-too-subtle critique of imperialist expansion. Elise Stone is particularly good as Widow Begbick, whose wily charms are used to raise questions about what it means for men to be men. Her sexy persona is used to profound effect and showcases the inane impact of both personal and political rapacity—whether in 1920s India or today’s Iraq and Afghanistan.

The seven-year-old Phoenix Theatre Ensemble is to be commended for reviving a play that other actors had relegated to history’s attic. The Company asks that patrons pay $25 per ticket, but their policy is to allow audience members to pay whatever they wish for each show.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, November 26th 2010

Pune Highway (11/11/2010)

mandy — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Directed by Rahul Da Cunha

Watermans Theatre

London, England

During my childhood, visits to India were largely spent travelling. A lot of this involved time on the infamous GT Road, a dry scaly snake taking us wherever we wanted to go. Aside from the beauty of fields either side, there was always the fear of danger lurking nearby. Visiting these roads was always interesting—but you knew they had the potential to harbour deadly forces. Whenever something happened, people would react wildly. The road was both a blessing and a curse, progressive in its promise, but with a lot to hide.

Whenever an incident on happened we looked on in wonder, not really knowing protocol. Minor scuffles in traffic would result in typical rambunctious arguments which proved entertaining for some—but larger incidents were a different matter. A cyclist thrown off his bike, for example, would result in a series of complexities not only for the culprit but also for spectators. Typically, they’d refrain from contacting the authorities, afraid of opening a can of worms.

One macabre incident, featured in the Times of India, inspired Rahul Da Cunha to create the play Pune Highway. Described as a "dark comedy thriller and a brutal exposition of friendship," Pune Highway is currently showing at Watermans Theatre in West London for a limited time. Rage Productions launched the play in Bombay to much critical acclaim.

On first seeing Pune Highway last night, I found it a raw and absorbing delight. With a sombre set and atmospheric lighting, the play revolves around three friends who have just witnessed the death of a fourth. As we open to a dank hotel room beside Pune Highway, three Bombay men are in turmoil, uncertain as to what their next actions are going to be.

It’s five in the morning, but no one is sleeping. The night before they were all subject to terrible events: a corpse lay on the road before them, but on closer inspection, they realised that it was not a corpse at all. Bags of rice had been laid out, designed to fool them. On realisation that they’ve been had, one of the party was attacked whilst the others fled.

While watching this play, I was quickly taken back to my own experiences of quiet Indian hotels. We’d usually rock up in a roadside three-star perched on the corner of a main highway hoping for the best. Usually it’s not the hotels themselves, but the occupants that make them such eerie places. I’m often reminded of Industrial expansion in America and Hitchcock’s Psycho. Our three characters are constantly on edge; they’re middle class men from Bombay: one with a former coke habit, another is having an extra-marital affair, and the third is wrestling with his conscience and a stammer. As they bicker and reminisce amongst themselves, things begin to get a little twisted as certain truths are revealed.

Rajit Kapur (Pramod), Ashwin Mushran (Vishnu), and Bugs Bhargava Krishna (Nicholas) have an excellent believable chemistry between them. You’d think they easily shared a childhood or a long personal history. Their suspicious waiter for the evening (Shankar Sachdev) makes regular appearances on the scene and speaks a type of street slang synonymous with his film roles. Unfortunately, the Hindi interludes are lost on some members of the London cosmopolitan audience.

Yamini Namjoshi, who plays Mona, relieves some of the tension with her spirited performance. Added to her character is a certain mystery that makes you realise all the characters in this play are truly multidimensional. As such, the play proves itself a strong candidate of the Problem Play genre. Neither too comedic nor melodramatic, it moves successfully through a gripping plot.

Overall, Pune Highway is a well woven mystery with little to fault it. The play’s ultimate success is that it leaves you wondering about the incident that inspired it: how many horrors have we actually seen on the major roads that network India? And what does our growing apathy and fear tell us about how we’re growing as a nation?

Pune Highway runs for a limited time in London before moving to New York and Washington, D.C. in June 2011.

Cross-posted at The NRI

Written by: Sandeep Sandhu, November 24th 2010

Soul Leaves Her Body (10/08/2010)

brittany — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000

HERE Arts Center

New York, New York

In today’s digital age, people often communicate with each other via computer and cell phone screens rather than face to face. In recent years, Here Arts Center has taken the difficult leap of transporting this contemporary feeling of being disconnected (and yet overconnected) via the coldness of technology to the theater stage through their resident artist productions. Soul Leaves Her Body is an ambitious multimedia venture that uses choreographed dance and video, creating a production that is highly visually stimulating and innovative in its implementation, albeit somewhat fragmented and confusing in its overall effect.

The concept behind Soul Leaves Her Body is derived from a thirteenth century Chinese tale, The Soul of Chi'en Nu Leaves Her Body, in which a young woman rips her soul from her body in order to pursue a destiny in the city. The work itself is split up into three stories: One set in the thirteenth century, the other two set in contemporary times. The first segment sticks to the original story line of the traditional tale, in which a young woman meets the strange man to whom she is betrothed but to whom her mother strangely refers to as “elder brother.”

Interestingly, the segment opens with a woman obviously not of Asian descent looking out on the audience proclaiming, “I am Mrs. Chang.” Later, an older Asian woman dressed in attire appropriate for thirteenth century China stares out at the audience from a video, a persona which we understand is being embodied by this much younger dancer. An image of a traditionally dressed Chinese man is also later shown on the video screen when we see the Caucasian dancer performing the role of the betrothed. The emotions the characters feel towards one another are conveyed through movement rather than dialogue, and all three performers fully embody the tone of the work in the well-choreographed dances.

For the second segment, Jennie Mary Tai Liu—who also served as the work’s co-director and choreographer—is seen in a film as Yan, floating in an anachronistic fishing boat at the shore of contemporary Hong Kong. While she peacefully drinks tea from an old fashioned tea pot, sitting in the ancient boat, she stares back at the blinding fluorescent lights on shore, trying to find the light of her friend’s apartment amidst the chaos. Her cell phone and MacBook on board prove to be her only links to the modern world she is floating in front of. Later, she and her siblings lose their mother’s apartment, leaving them the boat as their only home, floating uneasily without a sense of rootedness.

In the third segment, Yan rings a penthouse apartment to which she feels mysteriously pulled. The action then returns to the stage as Yan and her elderly relative share similar experiences as Chinese women seduced by foreign men, showing a connection between the past and the present.

Soul Leaves Her Body is a fascinating, innovative work, merging ancient texts with the disconnected, overly technological feel of modern life. However, it nonetheless feels fragmented. Audience members who do not read their programs or have some familiarity with the ancient Chinese fable may feel themselves somewhat lost at sea. Viewing this work is valuable nonetheless, as it successfully merges multiple mediums, creating a work of great visual stimulation.

Soul Leaves Her Body runs through November 23rd at Here Arts Center.

Written by: Adrienne Urbanski, November 12th 2010

Estrogenius Festival (10/08/2010)

mandy — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Manhattan Theatre Source

New York, New York

Considering how many women pursue a career in theater, it seems perplexing that so few women-centered plays or female directors make it to the stage. This was the problem Fiona Jones set to resolve when she created the Estrogenius Festival as a showcase of women in theater... a decade ago. With much of the theater industry still dominated by male voices and visions, this festival provides women a chance to step out from the sidelines and into the spotlight.

I attended the second week of the festival's short plays (for the first four weeks of the festival a different rotation of works are shown). The standout of the evening was “All Mapped Out,” a piece focusing on a lesbian couple, Hannah and Joni, at a crossroads in their relationship: Joni wants to move in together whereas Hannah is still approaching their commitment with caution. The two are en route to their therapist’s office for another session of couple’s therapy in Hannah’s new vehicle, which is equipped with a state-of-the-art GPS system replete with the voice of a British woman, whom Hannah has dubbed "Emily." (When Joni lampoons her naming the GPS system, Hannah points out that Joni named her car “Porsche DiRossi.")

While the drive begins on a cheery note, things quickly turn ugly as Joni confronts Hannah about her hesitancy towards co-domestication. As the couple’s relationship takes a turn for the worse, so does their drive; Hannah misses a turn and Emily begins to inform them of their need for recalculation, her directions mirroring the relationship’s misdirections. As the argument worsens, eventually leading to screams and a breakup, Emily advises them to drive straight off a cliff.

Writer Paula Marinac shows an ear for snappy, laugh-inducing dialogue, and director Alexandra de Suze times each punch line perfectly, milking every possible guffaw. Actors Cheryl Orsini and Candice Myers also are convincing in their roles. In a theater scene dominated by men, “Mapped Out” is a nice escape.

The other standout of the evening was “Little Goldie and the Shines,” directed by Lexi K. Hubb and written by Kay Poiro. It is a psychological thriller where a present day woman suffers from reoccurring nightmares in which she fronts a sixties girl group that is heading for an ill-fated flight. Tension mounts as the woman becomes increasingly unable to distinguish what is real and what is a dream. The cast for the work convincingly portrayed the mounting emotional drama of the work.

The other fare on the night I attended included three cleverly written short plays. "The Open Door," written by Hana Mironoff and directed by Kathleen O’Neil, focuses on a teenage prankster in Victorian England; "Crossing Borders" depicts a pair of mice debating whether they should pursue a life of intellectual stimulation by taking up residence in a Border’s bookstore; and "Wrong Planet," written by Dori Appel and directed by Dina Epshteyn, explores how one man’s struggle with autism presents challenges for his dating life. While some works were more engaging than others, all showed great originality, taking the short play form in new directions. The audience in the small, sold out venue maintained rapt attention throughout each work.

The Estrogenius Festival runs through October 29th, and the last week of the festival features audience-seleced encore performances of the best of all the short plays.

Written by: Adrienne Urbanski, October 16th 2010

Detroit (9/18/2010)

brittany — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Steppenwolf Theater

Chicago, Illinois

Half of the U.S. population lives in suburbs, places where there are no theres there. In the suburb outlying the eponymous city in Lisa D’Amour’s Detroit, all the streets in the Bright Homes subdivision are named after light. If Bill Vaughn’s observation is correct—“Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them”—then this particular development is consistent in its dearth of light, literal and figurative.

The lives that unwind on Sunshine Lane and Feather Boulevard portend the end of pretense and dawn of overwhelming futility, as dreams of ex-urban idylls decay along with the plywood of their construction. Director Austin Pendleton leads the sharp and talented cast—Laurie Metcalf, Kevin Anderson, Kate Arrington and Ian Barford—through a labyrinth of sharp and winding dialogue that leaves its characters stranded.

Ben and Mary are two happy homeowners who graciously welcome their neighbors, Rob and Sharon. Mary’s (Metcalf) twisted energy abounds as she offers the newcomers shelter beneath a vicious umbrella. Wired but not manic, her role is a perfect check to Ben’s persistent affability. He speaks a dialect of bonhomie that Rob (Anderson) will eventually emulate—“Let’s throw these puppies on the grill!”—or perhaps deride. Rob’s girlfriend Sharon establishes the standard of impropriety in the first scene, and in each subsequent scene emotional exposure and physical damage increase as drastically as the characters’ futures plummet.

Kevin Depinet’s set is a monumental replication of two tract home halves, thoughtful and precise: the laid-off bank worker Ben (Barford) builds the website for his nascent financial consulting business on an outdated clunking home pc. The obvious question is never addressed: how do you gain clients as a financial manager when no one has any finances to manage?

The new neighbors, Rob and Sharon (Arrington), have occupations typical of the new economy: warehouse worker and call-center service representative. The individuals, the community, the nation—all are going down in a spiral of low wages and lower expectations. Recovering addicts Rob and Sharon fall off the wagon, at first “just for one day.” In the few days of camaraderie between these old and new suburbanites, the veneer of civilization, is degraded unto destruction, but the viewer is not certain why. Were Ben and Mary primed for annihilation by recent events? Was the community’s stability in comparison to explosive cities always tenuous at best? The two couples sling finely crafted banter culminating in a bacchanal, and then Robert Brueler appears in a final scene in order to provide revelatory details and reminisce about the golden age of Bright Homes, of lights and gardens and children rushing to greet fathers emerging from cars as they returned from work at five o’clock. The closing monologue comes across as a somewhat sentimental ramble at the end of a superbly executed farce.

The play entertains, but audience members might depart with the certainty that the theater was aiming for something more. For some there there.

Photo credit: Michael Brosilow

Detroit runs through November 7.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, October 2nd 2010

The House Of Bilquis Bibi (7/2010)

admin — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Tamasha

London, England

Making her UK stage debut is veteran Indian singer and actress Ila Arun who plays the formidable lady in question. As the Pakistani mother of five unmarried daughters (Ghizala Avan, Vineeta Rishi, Shalini Peiris, Mariam Haque and Youkti Patel), Bilquis Bibi rules her house with an iron rod, almost literally. Brandishing her walking stick like a sword, she domineers her daughters, each of whom is trying to cope with the death of their father, Bilquis’s second husband.

Stricken with diabetes, her task of managing an all female household in mourning is further aggravated by her senile mother (Indira Joshi) and feisty maid servant, Bushra (the excellent Rina Fatania), on whom she relies on for the administration of life saving medication. Having agreed for her eldest girl Abida to marry her younger nephew Pappo, with their union comes the hope of love and new life in America. Conveniently turning a blind eye to the forbidden nightly visits Pappo pays to his fiancée’s balcony, it’s not until Bilquis realises that more than one of her daughters is staying awake for him that the real drama kicks in.

A zealous adaptation of Federico García Lorca’s masterpiece, The House of Bernarda Alba, Tamasha’s Bhuchar and co-founder and director Kristine Landon-Smith turn for to their favourite Spanish poet, dramatist, and theatre director for inspiration for the third time in their company’s history. Transporting one of his most famous plays from 1930s Spain to modern day Pakistan’s rich Punjab region, The House of Bilquis Bibi tells a personal story of suffocated small town lives with global ties. While the setting may be decades and continents apart, the core story and female characters remain as real and relevant today as they were during Lorca’s time.

While The House of Bilquis Bibi may not be Tamasha’s most ambitious productions, it is one of the most important. Besides giving a platform to a rare all female cast of nine, it also underlines Tamasha’s twenty-one-year history, an amazing body of work and the fact that one of the UK’s most successful Asian theatre companies started life as a project dreamt up by two friends in a small flat in Crouch End. For that Bhuchar and Landon-Smith must be applauded.

Excerpted from The NRI

Written by: Jaspreet Pandohar, August 9th 2010

A Parallelogram (7/1/2010)

admin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:57:00 +0000

Steppenwolf Theater

Chicago, Illinois

In Euclidean geometry, parallel lines never intersect. In post-Euclidean geometry, all parallel lines under specific conditions—for example, placed on a globe—will converge. In Bruce Norris’ new play, A Parallelogram, parallelogram is the term used to describe a window of sorts in space and time. The protagonist’s future self visits her through such a passage and discloses details of her life and the world to come. The intersecting lives—that of Bee, her boyfriend Jay, and the garden worker J.J.—are sharply critiqued by future Bee (henceforth referred to as “Bee 2”) to comic effect. The relentless quality and sharpness of the playwright’s words counterbalance the poignancy of Bee’s predicament: informed of the future, she rallies her will to intervene, with results that are futile at best.

Marylouise Burke plays Bee 2 and wins the audience over with her depiction of the idealistic young woman transformed into a bespectacled, chain-smoking, oreo-gobbling, sweatsuit clad pile of cynical resignation. The primary benefit of aging, she confidently yet conspiratorially announces, is no longer giving a shit. Younger Bee (Kate Arrington) becomes an increasingly engaging character, moving from annoying to genuinely concerned and of concern as the origin of her conundrum emerges and is further complicated by Bee 2’s interventions. Tom Irwin plays Bee’s boyfriend Jay, a man buffeted by his personal relationships who breaks off the relationship under the weight of Bee’s apparent insanity. J.J.—the sincere and ultimately unassuming lawnboy—is portrayed by Tim Bickel.

Big ideas are bluntly addressed—Is there free will? Is love real? Does life hold any meaning whatsoever?—but the play’s most engaging moments lie in its precise comic timing and repartee. Norris shares explications of men falling in love with folding chairs, or individuals saved by parrot’s bites, and these specific sights brace the sides of this quadrilateral form. Anna D. Shapiro’s direction deftly renders repeated scenes gripping instead of tedious, and keeps baldly comic elements fresh. Todd Rosenthal designed a splendid set, a standard middle class condominium that spins to show a hospital room and back again. The quandary of the play is presented on its programs: "If someone could tell you in advance exactly what was going to happen in your life, and how everything was going to turn out, and if you knew you couldn’t do anything to change it, would you still want to go on with your life?" If my reiterated existence included another outing to the Steppenwolf to see A Parallelogram, I would.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, July 13th 2010

Black Pearl Sings! (6/18/2010)

admin — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The Adrienne Theater

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

With their current production, Black Pearl Sings!, InterAct Theatre brings a powerful story to the Mainstage of Philadelphia’s Adrienne. The intimate performance space, where third row is a mere six feet from the floor-level stage, helps one feel immersed in the story.

Written by Frank Higgins and directed by Seth Rozin, the two-act play stars C. Kelly Wright as Alberta “Pearl” Johnson and Catharine K. Slusar as Susannah Mullally. In the story, set during the Great Depression, song collector Mullally meets Johnson while visiting a Texas prison. Mullally hopes to find an old song that has never been documented, a song that might land her a university teaching job. She helps to obtain parole for Johnson, with the condition that Johnson will be in Mullally’s custody. After parole, the women go to New York, where they present a performance meant to make both of them famous. The play ends with a powerfully triumphant Johnson in control of her own future, and Mullally humbled and grown through this relationship.

The play is based upon the true story of musicologist John Lomax, who collected songs for the Library of Congress during the 1930s. In a Louisiana penitentiary, Lomax met guitar player Huddie Ledbetter, later known as Lead Belly.

During the course of the play, Mullally reveals that her wealthy family has disowned her for pursuing a nontraditional path (“Why would I want to get married?”), and that a man used her research to advance his career. I sat shaking my head in disbelief, thinking to myself, “So now you are going to use a woman to advance your career? At one point she asks, “We’re friends, aren’t we?” to which Johnson replies, “We’re friendly.” For how can there be true friendship when one party’s freedom is dependent on another’s exploitation?

There were many moments when I found myself embarrassed for Mullally, as well as the ignorance of the community in which she moved, which viewed Johnson as a discovery or exhibit. In Act II, Mullally reads a review in which Johnson is referred to by the writer as “Black Pearl.” Johnson responds indignantly, “How come you ain’t White Susannah?” Mullally was schooled through her relationship with Johnson, and at many times humor eased the way.

For me, the greatest beauty of this show lay in the voice of C. Kelly Wright as she sang a cappella spirituals and folk songs, and her visceral expression of emotions throughout the performance. Her rich voice brought tears to my eyes multiple times, and manifested great power and strength. I felt her voice not only in my ears but in my bones.

Written by: Lisa Rand, June 24th 2010