Imagine that two monks show up at your house, politely knocking and bowing, and then want to discuss taking your three-year-old son back to India because he is believed to be the reincarnation of a revered lama (not the Dalai Lama, but another honored teacher). What would your reaction be? How would you not faint?
This is a beautiful, tempered production that ultimately offers hope and a belief in the magic of the universe we inhabit. It’s a journey well worth taking.
Well, in this intriguing production of “The Oldest Boy” at Spooky Action Theater, this is the groundwork for a journey by an American mother, a Tibetan father (raised in India from a young age) and their son. This forces an examination of their belief systems, their union, their backgrounds, the primalness of motherhood, and more. It’s a lot to pack into one play, but Sarah Ruhl rises to the challenge in a series of vignettes tracing this story arc.
Jenna Sokolowski is Mother, who does indeed faint (and watching her limbs turn to water and collapse is riveting of itself; you find yourself thinking, oh thank heavens he caught her), and she turns in a performance that is amazing in its simplicity and complexity at the same time. She is matched by Rafael Untalan as Father, who simply IS the controlled yet so loving husband and father torn apart internally by conflicting impulses to his bred-in-the-bones homeland and his new homeland of his family.
The son is portrayed as a three-year-old by a puppet (the puppeteer is Matthew Marcus, with assists from Steve Lee as Lama and Franklin Dam as Monk) and as the reincarnated lama (Al Twanmo in a joyful, light-giving performance). It’s an interesting choice by director Kathryn Chase Bryer and foreshadows the ultimate resolution.
The relationship between Mother and Father is not easy from the beginning—he is engaged to a Tibetan woman he has never met; it’s an arranged marriage. But Sokolowski stumbles into his restaurant to escape a downpour and their attraction is electric. She is a Ph.D. student in literature and searching for a way to finish her dissertation; she has been derailed by the death of her mentor and Ph.D. advisor. He is tradition-bound in that he feels the weight of his homeland in his core, yet he overcomes familial and cultural imperatives to marry the woman he loves. And then they have a son.
Both Father and Mother are practicing Buddhists but this revelation that their son may well be a reincarnated lama will test everything they have believed in, including each other. It’s a difficult journey and they clash, but there is enough bedrock in their commitment that they take the journey together.
So they travel to India after the boy’s testing and then comes the time for the real decision.
The play is not all drama and fraught however; as with life, there are moments of unintended comedy. One of the funniest moments is when Mother threatens to take her son and run away—to Ohio, where she was born and raised. Somehow, just the idea of Ohio as a place to flee to is funny in this context.
The play also confronts a truth that Americans don’t like to admit might be true—that sometimes there is no negotiation option, no collaboration option, no third choice. There is this—and only this choice, so what do you do? How do you survive? How do you trust the universe to have an answer?
The cast is rounded out by Stefany Pesta as a Dancer, and Matthew Marcus doing double duty as a Dancer. The dancing and music add a note of timelessness that heightens the tension inherent in the story. David Crandall is music and sound design; and the movement direction, music and cultural consultation are provided by Tuyet Thi Pham.
The set, designed by Vicki R. Davis, does beautiful triple duty as the American home, restaurant and Indian temple. There is a gentle arc that rises and falls to both sides, giving a visual cue to the concept of reincarnation.
Sarah Ruhl knows how to explore hard questions yet not overwhelm and listener/viewer to the point of refusal. This cast knows how to live in these roles and make them accessible that you understand the processes churning underneath.
This is a beautiful, tempered production that ultimately offers hope and a belief in the magic of the universe we inhabit. It’s a journey well worth taking.
Running Time: Two hours with a 10-minute intermission.
Show Information: ‘The Oldest Boy,” runs through June 30, 2019, Spooky Action Theater, Washington, DC. For more information, please click here.
