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A Surreal Thrill Ride in ‘Among the Dead’ at Jackalope Theatre

Among the Dead is the story of Ana (played with a grounded pathos by Malia Hu), a young Korean American woman in 1975 who arrives in a hotel room in Seoul with a box of her recently deceased father’s ashes, as well a multitude of questions about her own family history. Upon receiving a gift from the hotel’s mysterious handyman Jesus (yes, that Jesus, played with an easygoing charm by Colin Huerta), time and space begin to fracture around her in a gloriously surreal joyride. Catapulted back into the past as her white American father (a textured and tortured performance from Sam Boeck) and her Korean mother (the incredibly charismatic yet tragic Jin Park) first meet, both stranded in the jungle at the end of World War II, Ana must puzzle through the tumultuous sequence of political, social, and interpersonal factors that led to her own existence.

Hansol Jung’s script does excellent work combining unsettling surreality with hilariously relatable characterization, and Kaiser Ahmed’s direction ratchets up the tension and mystery with ease. The incredible set design from Paloma Locsin is on its face simple and straightforward, consisting of little more than a normal 1970’s hotel room. As the show unfolds, however, interactive elements across the set subvert their functions at key moments, shocking the audience and keeping us on our toes.

The lighting design from Samuel Stephen deserves particular praise for so effectively creating the show’s surreal atmosphere. The contrast between the everyday yellowish-white wash of the hotel room and the vibrant colors, wild moods, and otherworldly emotions of Ana’s time-bending journey couldn’t be more stark.

For all its time-and-space-bending mind-fuckery, however, at the end of the day Among the Dead is telling a deceptively simple story; that of Ana attempting to heal from a trauma that she didn’t even know her father had unjustly passed down to her. At its core, the show is about the catastrophic decisions of one deeply damaged man, their far-reaching consequences, and how to heal from them. The fact that we are shown this story through the lens of a gripping and spooky thrill ride, sprinkled with mind-blowing twists and heartwarming humor, is not just a nice added bonus but a thematic necessity. Uncovering these types of secrets in this cruel and chaotic world, Among the Dead seems to say, is always going to be unnerving, uncomfortable, even horrifying. But the deep satisfaction of the resulting catharsis cannot be argued with – making this show an absolute must-see.

Among the Dead runs at Jackalope Theatre until December 11th.

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CAST
San Boeck (Luke)
Malia Hu (Ana)
Colin Huerta (Jesus)
Jin Park (Number Four)

CREATIVE
Hansol Jung (playwright)
Kaiser Ahmed (director)
Monét Felton (associate director)
Paloma Locsin (scenic designer)
Isaac Pineda (costume designer)
Samuel Stephen (lighting designer)
Quinn Chisenhall (master electrician)
Michael Huey (sound designer)
Sheryl Williams (intimacy/fight choreographer)
Catherine Miller (casting director)
Isabelle Cheng (dramaturg)
Anna Brockway (stage manager)
Josh Derby (asst. stage manager)

Photo credit: Joel Maisonet

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‘Fiddler on the Roof’ at Lyric Opera Dazzles and Baffles in Equal Measure

I fully knew what I was getting myself into when I sought out a press ticket for Fiddler on the Roof at the Lyric Opera. As a lifelong devotee of the show, with a deep spiritual connection to the material, I suppose it was inevitable that my biases (unavoidable for any critic) would eventually spiral into full-fledged opinions about how I believe Fiddler should be done. And indeed, in a dismaying and ironic twist, it turns out that I am a bit of a “traditionalist” when it comes to Fiddler. When somebody tries to get even a little bit artsy or figurative with it, my inner old fogey inevitably rises to the surface (although to be fair, he’s never that far below), and so this is an important grain of salt to keep in mind as you read.

This is not to say that I did not enjoy this production; far from it. But for every element onstage that left me cackling with glee, there was another that I found utterly and completely baffling. Many of the directorial choices seem utterly disconnected from Fiddler’s themes. The musical is almost 60 years old at this point — and yes, a new production that’s basically just a remount, with no new choices and nothing new to say, isn’t going to cut it these days. However, it feels like the director’s choices to change certain aspects were made without a full comprehension or appreciation of the work’s themes. Fiddler is an incredibly intelligent show, with many crucial little details that all fold together in a complex clockwork of joy and heartbreak. Messing with that clockwork, then, is not a task that should be entered into lightly, and one which can easily be derailed.

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‘Miss Holmes Returns’ at Lifeline Theatre, and How to Enjoy the Fall of Empire

Miss Holmes Returns at Lifeline Theatre is one of those rare shows where the storytelling craft of it — the technical design, the direction, the performances, and the admirable effort and talent of everyone involved — is phenomenally executed with passion and panache, but is also somehow the least interesting thing about it. What really jumped out at me about Miss Holmes Returns were the themes: the things it has to say about fighting for what you believe in, finding the strength in admitting weakness, and how to enjoy the collapse of an empire. This is the rare historical piece that feels blisteringly relevant to the modern day; rarely have I had so much fun at the theater while also feeling so refreshingly validated by a show’s politics and message.

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‘In Every Generation’ at Victory Gardens and the Continuum of Jewish Trauma

While I knew to some degree that In Every Generation would be covering topics of Jewish oppression and trauma, I didn’t anticipate that it would poke and prod at me in such a genuinely unsettling way. In the opening scene, the youngest member of the family is made to sing the usually-sung-by-children Four Questions song despite being a full adult, an awkward moment made doubly so when she forgets the words. As a former Passover baby myself I was able to mouth along perfectly, barely restraining myself from shouting “It’s ‘Anu matbillin!’” when the character messed up — and from that point forward, I was inextricably drawn in.

In Every Generation at Victory Gardens Theatre is defined by this discomfort; that first awkward moment kicks off a harrowing fictional Passover seder where the Levi-Katz family is made to confront their myriad dysfunctions in such a way that leads both the family and the audience to consider fundamental questions about Jewish identity. While the show succeeds tremendously as a moving family drama that examines both the deeply personal and the urgently political, I found myself off-put by some of its philosophical conclusions. Perhaps that is the point.

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A Joyfully Genderqueer Romp in ‘Once Upon a Mattress’ at Theo Ubique

Once Upon a Mattress is a 1959 musical comedy that presents a goofy reimagining of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea.” It tells the love story between the adorably awkward (and misleadingly named) Prince Dauntless and the bombastic Princess Winnifred (or Fred to her friends), buoyed by a supporting cast of royals, nobles, and courtiers embroiled in various scandals, japes, and shenanigans. Being a comedy from the 50’s that covers topics of love and marriage, it’s no surprise that Once Upon a Mattress leans heavily on some outdated and reductive gender roles for its laughs. The smart way around this, which director Landree Fleming has employed to hilarious effect, is to lampoon and subvert those roles at every turn — primarily by showcasing a cast that is visibly and joyfully trans, non-binary, and queer.

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‘The Fifth World’ at Teatro Vista is a Captivating Audio Horror Adventure

Ever since the smash hit true crime podcast Serial aired in 2014 and catapulted the medium into the national spotlight, many audio storytellers have taken that formula — that is, a plucky reporter from out of town comes in to try and solve a highly personal mystery — and tried to fictionalize it with, in my opinion, limited success. Podcasts like TANIS, The Message, and Limetown tend to run up against the issue that the truly appealing thing about Serial was how off-the-cuff it felt, consisting as it did of Sarah Koenig talking to real people about real things. The obviously staged feeling of most fiction podcasts works against that tone a great deal. So how do you create a story that works in this formula?

Well, if you are triple-threat playwright, lead actor, and co-director Gabriel Ruiz in The Fifth World at Teatro Vista, the answer seems to be that you lean as hard away from realism as possible, embracing the limitless possibilities of audio to create something otherworldly, strange, and transcendent.

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‘American Side Efectos’ is a Triumphant Solo Show Full of Anger, Humor, and Heart

American Side Efectos is a solo performance piece written and performed by Debbie Baños, which tells the story of Debbie’s mother, an immigrant to the United States from El Salvador, and her painful, years-long fight within the immigration system to become a US citizen. While the subject matter could easily set a dark tone, Debbie infuses the proceedings with enough humor, heart, and warmth that American Side Efectos serves as both a loving portrait of the Baños family and a scathing indictment of institutionalized racism.

The show’s set is deliberately straightforward, with only a few simple set pieces placed across the stage, all of which Debbie interacts with at some point. I have complained before about solo performance that is overproduced or extravagant, and this show understands the fundamental appeal of the form; that is, that solo performance is all about knocking down the fourth wall, stripping away the normal artifice of theatre, and speaking directly to the audience.

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REVIEW: Theatre in the Dark Adapts a Tale of Aquatic Hubris with ‘Moby Dick in the Dark’

I went into Moby Dick in the Dark (adapted and directed by Cory Bradberry) mostly oblivious, knowing little about the plot or characters of Moby Dick other than what I’ve absorbed through cultural osmosis. I was very excited, as I’d edited two previous reviews we published about Theatre in the Dark productions — I was intrigued by the company’s approach to all-audio, live Zoom theatre, and wanted to see what the hype was about. I logged into the Zoom waiting room and, according to the company’s recommendation, made myself a hot drink and found a comfortable, dark corner to sit in.

There is something very primal and exciting about a live audio-only classical tale of risk and adventure — and without all the flair of in-person theatre, a stripped-down, barebones approach to a famously overhyped text is an enormously clever idea. The sound design and original music from Nick Montopoli do a lovely job of setting the mood, with some minimalist violins and drums, the evocative and harsh crashing of ocean waves, the textured creaking of wooden ship planks, and the shrieking of seagulls. The adaptation from Cory Bradberry aptly and succinctly condenses the story into something listenable. In its original iteration, the book (I’m told) contains many long, meandering explanations that are only tangentially related to the plot — and here, they are either cut entirely or reduced to a few essential sentences. At only 90 minutes, I can only assume this is a tight adaptation of Herman Melville’s gargantuan classic.

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A Straightforward Monologue About Grief: ‘The Catastrophist’ at Marin Theatre Company and Round House Theatre

The Catastrophist, written by Lauren M. Gunderson, is a filmed one-man play about the playwright’s husband Nathan (William DeMeritt). Gunderson’s non-fiction drama introduces us to this epidemiologist who has devoted his entire life to the study of pandemics, also known as the massive cultural event we’re all currently stuck inside. One might then expect The Catastrophist to be a play about science — but it ends up being a play about death, and grief, and how to live with the inherent unpredictability of the world even as you strive to predict it.

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REVIEW: A Fascinating, Intimate Video Chat in ‘What is Left, Burns’ at Steppenwolf Theatre

What is Left, Burns is the story of a video call between two men — college professor Keith (K. Todd Freeman) and his former student and lover Ronnie (Jon Michael Hill), who are holding their first conversation in fifteen years, with all the complicated emotions that entails. At only twenty minutes long, What is Left, Burns is a short, sweet, poetic, and heartfelt meditation on the thorny business of negotiating intimacy at a distance. Despite seemingly not being set during a pandemic, its setting echoes the situation we currently find ourselves in — when nearly all close communication must be digitally mediated, all profound emotions filtered through a screen.

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