This is Drama Masks, a Bay Area performing arts column from a born San Franciscan and longtime theatre artist in an N95 mask. I talk venue safety and dramatic substance, or the lack thereof.
I honestly didn’t plan to go on a “Golden Thread spree;” it just happened that way. By odd circumstance, I spent this past weekend watching three shows connected—either directly or tangentially—to this country’s first-ever theatre dedicated to Middle Eastern artists and stories. Of course, it is the company’s 30th anniversary, they just took on a new AD, and the US is engaged in yet another shit show in the Middle East. So, maybe fate was steering me?
In regard to that shit show: As a journalist, it’s been exhausting watching media hypocrisy unfold the way it has, trying to declare a “hero” in the US’s (and Israel’s) war on Iran. Both sides have so much literal and figurative blood on their hands that I constantly find myself thinking of this Guardian headline from March, spoken by an Iranian citizen: “You’re all worse than each other.”
That’s the context I carried into the Red Poppy Art House to catch GT’s workshop production of I C U (I See You) by Leyla Modirzadeh and Domenique Lozano. As it was a workshop/reading, this won’t be a review, but the solo show, performed by Bridgette Loriaux, takes place in the midst of 2022’s “Women. Life. Freedom” movement. It’s the story of five women of disparate ages who find themselves—intentionally or not—in the middle of a massive protest. As they often do, the authorities turn violent in a way that will later be blamed on the protestors themselves. The method of violence is hinted at in the title, but it’s only the beginning for what lies in store.
As stated, I won’t review this in-development presentation, but I will mention the resonance it has for a protestor like myself. There’s a familiarity to the script about being among a crowd who only yearn for freedom, on to be (violently) opposed by the armed storm troopers who say they’re there to protect you. There’s also an unexpected amount of gallows humor in the script that doesn’t so much relieve the tension as make the characters “laugh to keep from crying,” which doesn’t always work. When the show starts off with our narrator guiding the audience on how to choke themselves, the tone is set clearly.
The show is expected to get a full GT production next season, so it’ll be interesting to see how it evolves from then to now. As it stands, it’s a stark reminder that one should stop looking for “heroes” in the current conflict, until they deliberately try to help the people themselves—which none of the battling forces are.
Also, I should visit Red Poppy more often. (My Aranet4 read CO² levels at 3,266ppm at the end of the reading.)
Marin Shakes presents As You Like It
GT board member Evren Odçikin was the adaptor and director behind my first-ever Marin Shakespeare show. I’ll start off by saying he assembled a helluva cast, but I don’t envy them having to rough it through the freezing North Bay cold of opening night.
The Pride-appropriate show was the Bard’s gender-bending rom-com (of which there are many) As You Like It (through July 19 at the Forest Meadows Amphitheatre, San Rafael). If it seems like there have been several local productions of that show in recent years, there have been. In fact, the last major one to be produced locally was Cal Shakes’ swan song, which was also performed in an amphitheatre and also co-starred Chris Steele. (She elevates material, what can I tell ya?)
As per usual, shame-plagued Orlando (Adam Magill) finds himself in an unlikely power struggle with his sibling (“Olivia” in this version, played by Stevie DeMott) and the cruel Duke Frederick (Lisa Wolpe) who ousted their father. After Orlando unexpectedly wins a wrestling match, he’s exiled to the forest so the Duke can save face. Unknowingly following behind are Orlando’s crush Rosalind (Jeunée Simon) and her cousin Celia (Fatemeh Mahraban), both in male drag and accompanied by goofball Touchstone (David Sinaiko). Behind them lies the danger of the kingdom; ahead of them lies the promise of peace in the woods of Arden.
Odçikin’s version leans hard into its queerness, beginning with an opening pantomime that has its character walking an invisible runway. Be prepared for every meet-cute to be accompanied by an audible chime, and for the Duke’s list of banishments to appear in a Mean Girls-style “burn book.” (Props to, well, prop artisan Jenna Forder for that one.) The show’s rainbow-colored aesthetic and club-friendly musical cues, including several scene-stealing vocalizations from music director Lady Zen, make it a fun, unabashedly-gay take on one of Shakespeare’s favorites. As long as you prepare by dressing in layers and eating warmly, you should enjoy this Pride-perfect production.
(As the show was outdoors, CO² readings remained in the low-400ppms throughout. Incidentally, I was approached during intermission to be thanked for mentioning COVID safety. “It’s nice to know that someone cares.” I couldn’t agree more.)
AS YOU LIKE IT runs through July 19 at the Forest Meadows Amphitheatre (on the campus of Dominican University), San Rafael. Tickets and further info here.
Arab Spring world premiere by Golden Thread
The final show was GT’s proper production for the month. In a way, it’s the most traditional of the shows I saw this past weekend. Not because it’s a revival or anything (it’s not), but because plays revolving around the unseen deceased are a genre unto themselves.
For playwright-in-residence Denmo Ibrahim’s Arab Spring (world premiere through July 12 at Potrero Stage, SF), we find ourselves in Houston, TX during a sweltering-hot 4th of July. Childish local shop-owner Yusef (Salim Razawi) and his lesbian lawyer sister from NY, Dina (Arti Ishak), have to clear the house ahead of their late father’s funeral. As such things do, parsing out memorabilia brings up powerful memories. The siblings have a lot to physically and proverbially unpack regarding the man who hewed close to tradition to the very end. In fact, that tradition may just drive them apart further.
The archetype of Ibrahim’s script is as familiar as the back of your hand, but she still makes it her own by breaking away from the lily-white context of most versions. The duo of this show (skillfully directed by Nailah Unole didanas’ea Harper-Malveaux) essentially deconstruct the familiar notion of assimilated millennial PoCs in adulthood. “Generation 9/11” had to work extra-hard for acceptance under Dubya and beyond, and the scars still show. Comparing and contrasting it with the life of a boomer parent who escaped to the US to avoid that very thing makes for the cruelest of paradoxes.
CO² readings peaked at 1,746ppm by the final bow. Arab Spring is a taut (and a tad unpolished) look at the idea that generational trauma doesn’t need to grow from silence as much as violence.
ARAB SPRING’s world premiere runs through July 12 at the Potrero Stage, SF. Tickets and further info here.
