The House Of Bilquis Bibi - Tamasha: London, England (7/2010)

Directed by Sudha Bhuchar

The mother figure has long stood as a central figure in Asian art, literature, and cinema, so it comes as little surprise that a dominant matriarch would take centre stage in Tamasha theatre company’s latest production. Having given us George Khan, the fierce Pakistani patriarch of their hit 1989 play, East Is East, Tamasha’s co-founder/writer Sudha Bhuchar presents the world with his female counterpart in The House of Bilquis Bibi.

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.

Review by Jaspreet Pandohar

The House of Bilquis Bibi runs until October 2, 2010. Click here to read Jaspreet's full review at The NRI.

A Parallelogram - Steppenwolf Theater: Chicago, IL (7/1/2010)

Directed by Anna D. Shapiro

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.

Review by Erika Mikkalo

A Parallelogram is playing at the Steppenwolf through August 29.

Black Pearl Sings! — The Adrienne Theater, Philadelphia (6/18/10)

Written by Frank Higgins
Directed by Seth Rozin

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.

This excellent production runs through June 27.

Review by Lisa Rand

Prophecy — East Fourth Street Theater, New York, NY (6/6/10)

Written and Directed by Karen Malpede

Forty years ago, Edwin Starr’s “War” was a Billboard Top 100 hit, an explicit denunciation of armed conflict: “War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing,” he trilled.

Karen Malpede’s Prophecy takes this sentiment as her starting point. Her latest play, an ambitious, layered look at the damage wrought by centuries of strife on the battlefield—and in the personal relationships that ensue once military action is over—is bold and dramatic. It’s also shrill.

Numerous stories unfold simultaneously. Jeremy Thrasher [Brendan Donaldson], recently back from fighting in Iraq, is studying acting at a well-respected New York conservatory. His teacher is former Broadway actor Sarah Golden [Kathleen Chalfant]. A monologue Golden instructs Thrasher to deliver—the Tiresias speech from Sophocles’ Antigone unwittingly sends him into a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder-induced rage. Golden is shocked by the violence of his in-class outburst, and in short order not only has to help him deal with the trauma he has experienced, but also has to re-examine her own past, including a volatile relationship with Lucas Brightman, a former student who fought in Vietnam and later died. Golden and Brightman had been lovers and Thrasher’s struggles bring Golden face-to-face with a host of complicated recollections and emotions from the early 1970s.

At the same time, Golden and her husband of many decades, Alan [George Bartenieff], are having difficulties. As the director of a refugee aid organization, Alan is often busy “saving the world,” making Sarah feel as if her work as a teacher is frivolous. Also distressing, many years back Alan had an affair with his assistant, Hala [Najla Said]. But it was not just lust that propelled Alan into bed with Hala. A Jew whose father saved hundreds from Hitler’s ovens, Alan felt a tremendous need to propagate, to do his bit to replace those lost to the Fuhrer’s genocide. Sadly, Alan and Sarah cannot reproduce; Sarah became infertile following an illegal abortion performed years before, prior to Roe v. Wade. After taking up with Hala, Alan’s dream was realized—after one miscarriage, Hala carried to term and delivered a daughter, Mariam, who she reared in Lebanon.

Out of sight is apparently out of mind and Sarah and Alan rarely talk about either Hala or the child anymore. In fact, Alan doesn’t meet Mariam [Najla Said] until years later when, as an adult, she lands on his doorstep and threatens to blow him to smithereens with a bomb she says is hidden in her purse.

And that’s not all: Turns out Sarah’s boss, Dean Charles Muffler, [Peter Francis James] was Lucas Brightman’s commanding officer in Vietnam and his possible role in Brightman’s death lurks over the two-act production. What’s more, Thrasher’s PTSD triggers long-buried feelings in Muffler and he is once again tormented by memories of
serving in the country.

These themes give Prophecy incredible, palpable intensity. Despite this, Prophecy weaves a cloth of far too many threads. The similarities between U.S. involvement in Vietnam and Iraq are noteworthy, but on top of themes including marital fidelity, the desire to reproduce, the meaning of friendship, the Holocaust, successful mentoring, how best to assist refugees, the threat of terrorism, and the lasting impact of war on both those who fight and those who are fought against, it’s too much.

Still, Prophecy delivers an urgent message. Like Edwin Starr’s “War,” it reminds us that nothing good comes from military combat. “They say we must fight to keep our freedom,” Starr sang. “But Lord knows there’s got to be a better way.”

Indeed.

Review by Eleanor J. Bader

Prophecy runs at the East Fourth Street Theater through June 20.

Kanyadaan - Ethnic Cultural Theatre: Seattle, WA (5/14/2010)

Directed by Agastya Kohli

It is with much anticipation that I attended the opening night show of Kanyadaan, a play written by Vijay Tendulkar and directed by Pratidhwani’s Agastya Kohli. The reasons for my enthusiasm were multifold; for one, I’ve been a fan of Agastya’s (and Pratidhwani’s) work for a few years now, and second, I had personally worked with all members of Kanyadaan’s talented cast in last year’s incisive political satire, Ek Tha Gadha, Urf Aladad Khan. But most of all, from what I knew of the play (and the playwright), it promised a complex plot of important societal concerns that the actors, no doubt, would find challenging to portray, and the audience, perhaps, would find equally challenging to process.

Given the challenging complexity of the characters, the performances by the cast were considerably accomplished. Jayant Bhopatkar, playing Nath, fills the stage with his booming, bombastic monologues that reek of a nauseating brand of “democratic” patriarchy. Nanda Tewari, as Nath’s wife Seva, plays beautifully, his complicit complement in maintaining the status quo, carrying that curious blend of feminist independence and practical subservience that is so characteristic of many of us empowered (Indian) women. But the actors who held my eye the most were Aditi Chaubal, playing Jyoti, and Ankur Gupta, playing Arun.

It couldn’t have been easy to step into the shoes of an abused woman, trapped between her idealistic upbringing and her misplaced muse, or those of an oppressed dalit flitting between mouthfuls of crass expletives and self-flagellating, indulgent remorse. I found my heartstrings empathetically connected with Jyoti throughout the play, beyond reason – beyond the need to understand, judge, or admonish her. And, quite paradoxically, I found Arun’s condition just as poignant; he too was an anchor for my heartfelt attention, once again, beyond my need to understand, judge, or admonish him. Both Aditi and Ankur came out on top, bringing forth with surprising ability the complexity and contradictions of these two central characters, each of whom manifests the societal conditions and conditioning that Tendulkar wants us to consider.

Bhushan Mehendale, playing the support role of Jyoti’s brother Jai Prakash, embodies to great effect the emasculation of his father’s domineering presence and the confusion and repressed frustration of an under-expressed youth. Even C.P. Ramakrishnan and Ravi Sathyam, appearing briefly as insolent sidekicks of Arun, demonstrate with their body language alone that no role is a small one. The performances left no doubt in my mind that Kohli selected a great cast and nurtured the best out of them.

In terms of storyline flow, on occasion the rapid-fire pace of the deliveries disabled me from stopping to ponder, to read more between the lines, to connect more fully to the complex characters, especially with Jyoti’s and Arun’s. I missed the whitespace – the larger canvas that might have better held and cradled the complexities and contradictions portrayed – and for this reason alone, some of the turns in the plot may have come across as somewhat simplistic and not-so-believable. Yet, a tight cadence was necessary to keep the intensity and tension of the storyline; so, achieving a fine balance was undoubtedly no mean task.

My heartfelt kudos go to director Agastya Kohli and the entire cast and crew of Kanyadaan, for taking on this challenging subject and play, and for orchestrating yet another thoughtful production for the Seattle Indian diaspora.

Review by Shahana Dattagupta

Cross-posted from Pratidhwani

Endgame - Steppenwolf Theater: Chicago (04/13/2010)

Directed by Frank Galati

The final stage of chess, the endgame, is a stage of the game in which few pieces are left on the board and pawns increase in significance. Endgames often center on trying to promote a pawn by moving it to the eighth rank. The king, typically sheltered from checkmate, changes into a strong piece that can be brought to the center of the board for attacks. In Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, four characters barely move in a box of a stage, rank is fluid, and no clear victory is assigned.

The Steppenwolf’s production of Beckett’s revered theatrical work is effective in its simplicity, with a set both barren and elegant, an accurate replication of the canonical script, and talented actors. More engaging than the previous staging of Endgame that I have seen—at a theater that shall remain unnamed, seeing that I fell asleep—this production benefits from strong performances, although on occasion these same performances might overshadow the deft minimalism of the text. Some of the lines, particularly early on, seem rushed, or perhaps I just require a more studied pace for thorough digestion.

The measured observations of the last half are a closer match to my understanding of Beckett. William Peterson’s Hamm is very active for a paraplegic: the audience is less likely to keep his imminent end in mind. He is regally seated on artfully makeshift throne, meticulously shifted to the center of the stage through his berating of his manservant, Clov. Hamm’s parents emerge from his and her trash cans to deliver nostalgic fugues. Particular kudos go to Martha Lavey for her poignant portrayal of Nell. Ian Barford plays Clov, and it is consistent with political readings of Beckett that a servant moves things forward. Clov’s moments of subversion contribute significantly to the work’s humor—light moments in a relentlessly bleak world. At one point Clov admonishes his master for having caused a woman to die of darkness. Endgame suggests the same end awaits us all.

Review by Erika Mikkalo

Endgame plays at the Steppenwolf through June 6. David Sedaris is appearing for eight performances from June 8-13. Bruce Norris’s A Parallelogram premiers July 1 and runs through Sunday, August 29.

MILK - HERE Arts Center: New York, NY (5/1/2010)

Directed by Jessica Bauman

Emily DeVoti’s provocative two-act play, MILK, opens in a spare farmhouse kitchen. It’s 1984. Ronald Reagan has just been elected US president and local newscasters seem to have nothing good to report. Meg (played by Jordan Baker), a former mathematician who loves precision and order, and her husband Ben (Jon Krupp), a former investigative reporter, are sitting at the table and talking, but it’s the kind of tense conversation that can quickly turn from controlled anger to fierce argument.

Things are bad, very bad. A drought has made dairy production virtually impossible, and land that’s been in Meg’s family for centuries is now on the cusp of foreclosure. On top of this, their college-aged daughter—who is never seen but is referenced at key moments in the play—wants to be an actress and their fourteen-year-old son Matt (Noah Robbins) wants material things his parents cannot possibly afford: name-brand sneakers, CDs, a bedside color TV, and stylish clothes, among them. Worse, there’s a city slicker on the prowl, and he’s made no bones about wanting to “help” Meg and Ben ease their financial woes. Ben thinks it’s good idea, "a gift from God"; Meg doesn’t.

Ben wins.

By the time businessman James (Peter Bradbury) and his teenaged daughter, Veronica (Anna Kull), arrive on the scene—in a private plane, no less—things have deteriorated even further. But James couldn't care less about the family’s personal difficulties. Instead, he’s turning his managerial acumen to improving the farm’s productivity. Although he knows nothing about cows, he hatches a plan that, on paper, will foster unprecedented growth and save the day: importing “wild, hairy, horned” bulls to impregnate the many heifers dotting the pastoral landscape.

As you have probably guessed, things don’t pan out as James—or Ben or a reluctant Meg—expect. While the second act of the play is far weaker than the first, the excellent cast, including Caroline Baeumler as Auroch, a talking bovine the Program Notes describe as “quite possibly the last living wild cow,” briefly explore a number of evocative themes including monetary pressures; urban versus rural lifestyles; marital fidelity; self-sacrifice; coming of age; and the festering ache that often accompanies keeping silent about things that matter.

In fact, by the time Veronica tearfully confides her father’s secrets to Matt, the pathos is so intense that James instantly morphs into someone less repugnant. In the end, while we may revile Matt politically, DeVoti renders him a multidimensional personality who is deserving of compassion.

There are no easy answers in MILK. Indeed, as the world changes, some customs and practices inevitably become obsolete and are replaced by newer rituals and activities. The key is figuring out which pieces of cultural and personal history to retain and which to let go.

At one point, Meg looks into a bucket of unpasteurized milk and declares that “the pure stuff, it corrupts so easily.” Maybe so. MILK asks its viewers to think about what’s negotiable and what isn’t. Regardless of what is ultimately decided, one thing is certain: after watching this well-executed play, urban audiences will think about cows in a whole new way.

Review by Eleanor J. Bader

**MILK will be performed at the HERE Arts Center through May 22nd.

Photo of Jordan Baker and Carolyn Baeumler by Jim Baldassare

Women Writers of the Provincetown Players: A Collection of Short Works

Edited by Judith E. Barlow
State University of New York Press

For someone whose theater knowledge is limited to a high school rendition of Cheaper by the Dozen, the compilation of plays that comprises Women Writers of the Provincetown Players were both easy and enjoyable to read. Prefaced with a twenty-three -page introduction outlining the history and significance of the group of women included in Women Writers of the Provincetown Players, the book quickly but adequately fills in the reader. Many of the plays are between ten and twenty pages, and range in subject from feminism to love, or simply intellectual entertainment. The opening line of the introduction prepares the reader for the impact these playwrights had, as “during the opening years of the twentieth century, women’s designated place in the theater was in the audience.”

To counter this irritating—to say the least—situation, a number of women writers joined the Provincetown Players, a group of radical visionaries, but hardly outcasts. These educated middle class citizens summered in Provincetown and joined together to “oppose the status quo of their conservative hometowns and [dedicate] themselves to supporting artistic innovation, questioning the capitalist system, reevaluating relations between women and men, and challenging traditional sexual mores.”

From the first play in the collection these goals are evident, yet apropos to the time. Winter’s Night by Neith Boyce opens the book on a strong feminist note by posing the radical notion that the lead character, Rachel, “is less a victim of the two brothers than of the assumption that marriage is the ideal situation for all women.” While by today’s standards the main plot of the story may appear to be an uncomfortable love triangle between a woman, her recently deceased husband, and his living brother, the real aim of the piece is to broach a touchy idea: that marriage may be more of a trap for women than the assumed salvation.

In addition to the opening chapter informing the reader to the significance of the works in Women Writers of the Provincetown Players, each play is accompanied by a short (roughly three pages) introduction giving background on the author and where the included work fits in the Provincetown Players' repertoire.

Many of the woman who contributed to this book with their theatrical works were better known for other uncommon feats for their time. Susan Glaspell, for example, was publishing long before she began her secondary education at Drake University; others, such as Rita Wellman, had been publishing since childhood. Edna St. Vincent Millay was a known poet before joining the group, and Djuna Barnes is described, impressively, as a “novelist, playwright, journalist, theater reviewer, and poet.” The book is a pleasant read, seeing the progress of women in both art and society.

Review by Tatiana Ryckman