AISLE SAY New York

THE OLDEST BOY

by Sarah Ruhl
Directed by Rebecca Taichman
Ensemble Cast featuring Celia Keenan-Bolger
A Production of Lincoln Center Theater
The Mitzi E. Newhouse at Lincoln Center

Reviewed by David Spencer

In The Oldest Boy by Sarah Ruhl a young mother (Celia Keenan-Bolger), studying for conversion to Buddhism, and married to a Tibetan émigré (James Yaegashi) receives a visit from a Lama (James Saito) and a Monk (Jon Norman Schneider), who gently inform her that there’s evidence that her young son (a puppet with multiple operators) is the reincarnation of a revered Tibetan Lama. They come seeking her consent for them to take the boy back to India, to fulfill his destiny and again become…himself…

            The phrase “who are you crazy people” never enters into it, and instead—as the mystical mood, production design and puppet-as-boy might suggest—The Oldest Boy is an atmospheric magical-realism style rumination on the nature of faith, and what in faith constitutes evidence.

            For all that The Oldest Boy is atmospheric and Out There in the land of mythical events (and obscure reported stories that fuel the imagination), The Oldest Boy is a very gentle and intimate affair, delivered with graceful and memorable theatricality, acted superbly under the delicate direction of Rebecca Taichman. But for me, it also landed as a mild affair.

            I’m not sure if that’s because I’m a skeptic about such matters in real life; or, paradoxically, if, as a longtime reader of genre fiction, including stories of the supernatural—my enjoyment of which is rarely hampered by atheism—I’m familiar enough with this kind of story that neither the idea nor the themes it explores struck me as novel or new. (What was once the most famous fictional examination of reincarnation and Tibetan culture, about a father and daughter, Audrey Rose, by Frank de Felitta, goes back to 1975.) Or if, simply on its own terms, The Oldest Boy is a mild affair.

            The main consideration is whether the play is worth your time in this life. And the most I can say definitively is, there’s nothing wrong with spending time watching art wrought honestly and well, in the service of ideas articulated cleanly and ably dramatized. But that’s not the same as saying this one is mandatory either. I guess it depends in your faith on the outcome…


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