Priyanka Shetty. Photo by Teresa Castracane.
Those who were fortunate enough to catch Caleen Sinnette Jennings’ Queens Girl trilogy in recent years will find familiar terrain in Priyanka Shetty’s “The Elephant in the Room.” Making its regional debut this month in Washington, “Elephant” is a solo performer piece which tells the autobiographical story of its author: a woman who leaves her homeland to chase a dream halfway around the world. In Shetty’s piece (unlike in Jennings’ work), the performer and the author are one and the same. In this way, it may bear more similarity to Rain Pryor’s “Fried Chicken and Latkes.” Either way, this play is a deeply personal journey, performed with great vigor and heightened emotion by one of our favorite contemporary practitioners of melodrama.
…direct, unambiguous, and fun…Shetty pours every ounce of energy at her ample disposal into creating an engaging evening of theater.
Shetty is based in Philadelphia. Her theatrical origin story describes a childhood in Bangalore, India, where parental pressures led her to education in engineering. Drawing inspiration from love and loss to chuck it all and follow her heart, she decides to emigrate to the U.S. and pursue a masters degree in acting. She lands at the University of Virginia, and is challenged there by perceptions of her ‘otherness.’ These threaten to derail her performance career before it starts, with the added pressure of the potential loss of her visa. As this is happening, she witnesses, up close, the white supremacist Charlottesville riot of 2017. Incidentally, that event is the subject of “#CHARLOTTESVILLE,” Shetty’s second entry in what will eventually be a triptych.
Rejected by academia, Shetty adopts the old saying “if they don’t make a place for me at their table, I’ll cook my own meal.” She decides to write a play. That play, naturally, is this play, and it shifts to the telling of its own creation. This happens within the construct of a backstage drama in which it is “ten minutes to places” while Shetty is having an anxious freak-out in her dressing room. Her parents are in the audience, she doesn’t want to go on stage tonight, and there’s a mysterious parcel with no return address. She hears voices—some of them are her own. She fears the Hindu god, Ganesha, while proclaiming her agnosticism. She collects elephant trinkets, and converses with a wooden one as if it were a volleyball in a Tom Hanks movie. Shetty is definitely at sea as this allegory unfolds, but does find her way home to her self by the time “places” is called.
Along the way, she delves into some juicy, culture-shock material in which inequitable gender mores of the old country are exposed. She decries the lack of agency afforded her, compared to her brother. In America, she finds new targets for wit and critique: “It’s okay to talk about yoga without being breathy,” she jabs. Shetty also pokes the bear of theater, from the grind of auditions (she does a great delivery of the “sell when you can; you’re not for all markets” bit from “As You Like It”) to the alternating exploitation and rejection of her work based on her color. ”I’m a brown woman who survived Trump’s America,” she hollers, oozing with righteous exasperation. By the time her story concludes, she is redeemed, empowered, confident, and ready for her entrance.
The Keegan production of “Elephant” is directed by Suli Holum. It’s an intriguing relationship when the playwright is also the performer. As was the case with “James Baldwin: A Witness” in Baltimore three years ago, one imagines that Shetty leaned on Holum as more of a set of eyes in the audience to coach her. Whatever the nature of their collaboration, the results are very sound. Pacing is peppy, and there’s lots of opportunity for Shetty to move—particularly in the liberal sprinklings of Bollywood homage that decorate the action. Dirk Durossette’s scenic design is simple and functional. Lighting by Julie Briski is evocative and apt. Sound is by Natali D. Merill and features some lovely, moody bits. A pair of costume designers, Katherine Stefl and Leigh Paradise, clothe Shetty in everything from yoga pants to a Rage Against the Machine tank top. The production is direct, unambiguous, and fun as is the performance. Shetty pours every ounce of energy at her ample disposal into creating an engaging evening of theater.
Running time: Approximately one hour and 24 minutes without intermission.
Advisory: Profanity, the use of flashing lights.
“The Elephant in the Room” runs through June 23, 2024 at The Keegan Theatre, 1742 Church Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036. For more information and to purchase tickets, go online.
