Reviewed by Michael J. Opperman
Mixed
Blood's Love Person
is startling and evocative. But when the play started, I was skeptical. Several
flat panel television screens hung above the stage. A man was reading a poem in
Sanskrit, while what I presumed to be the original written Sanskrit trailed
across the screens in lovely impenetrable script. Three women listened with
varying attentiveness (two conversing in ASL) as techno music vibrated softly
in the background. At first blush, the play seemed an ambitious and
well-meaning mess.
But,
after an unsteady but promising first scene, the play developed into a moving,
nuanced and provocative exploration of language, intimacy and the real world
landscape of relationships. In addition to Sanskrit characters, the flat
screens also provided translations of conversations in ASL and transcripts of
late night email conversations. With a deft touch, Aditi Brennan Kapil's play -- through Risa
Brainin's
direction -- covers the shiny obliviousness of first attraction, filial
jealousy, erosion of intimacy, and connections and estrangements that occur
through language.
Maggie
(Erin McGovern)
and Free (Alexandria Wailes) are credible and affecting as the lesbian couple evaluating
a long-term relationship constructed with and around language. Free
communicates entirely through ASL and wages a passive-aggressive war against
English, while Maggie - who is not deaf - attempts to integrate the hearing
world into her life with Free. The emotional distance pressing on their
relationship causes Free to engage in an emotional affair via email with her
sister Vic's (Jennifer Maren) new lover Ram (Rajesh Bose). Ram believes his email paramour
to be the same person with whom he's sleeping. Where the play could be
agitprop, it is personal. Where it could devolve into melodrama, it is
evenhanded and considerate. Where it could be funny and moving and complex, it
is. Nayna Ramey,
Scenic and Projections Designer, and Michael Klaers, Lighting and Projections
Designer), make wonderful use of the stage, using the screens and furniture to
shift fluidly between cafˇ and multiple private apartments. There are some
physical cues and direction that stumbled slightly, but I'm sure these will be
ironed out as the production continues. Love Person is a "rolling world
premiere," supported by the National New Play Network and will make its debut in April
in California and in Indianapolis in July. I recommend you catch it now before
it wends it way out of our city.