my name in the Chronicle (in a good way)!!
Suitcase (Chaméda-n): Drama. By Farhad Ayeesh. Directed by Jim Cave and Mansour Taeed. (Through Sept. 24. Darvag Theater at Intersection for the Arts, 446 Valencia St., San Francisco. 85 minutes. Tickets $15-$20. Call (510) 595-4607 or visit www.darvag.org).
The skewed-perspective, distressed-concrete room is as uninviting as it is anonymous. As each character enters -- distressed suitcase, briefcase or hat box clutched in one hand -- the door slams shut with a bang, re-echoed with the finality of a loud metallic clang. The psychological dislocation of the immigrant takes on the physical form of a "No Exit" antechamber to the unknown in Darvag Theater's "Suitcase (Chaméda-n)" at Intersection for the Arts.
The experience is universal, but the particular immigrant group that inspired Farhad Ayeesh's drama, as the program explains, was "the Iranian community in exile" in the Bay Area in the 1980s. Ayeesh, who has since returned to Iran (where he works in theater, TV and film), wrote "Suitcase" in Farsi for the East Bay Iranian American Darvag company he helped found in 1985. One of the group's early signature works, it's being staged in English for the first time in co-founder Bella Warda's cryptic translation.
It's a generally intriguing show, at times comic, evocative or affecting. Despite the "No Exit" look of Ali Dadgar's set, Ayeesh's script is more influenced by Ionesco than Sartre. But "Suitcase" uses Ionesco's absurdism to illuminate the experience of being displaced.
With a multicultural cast of 14 and enhanced production values, it's also a fairly ambitious undertaking, presented in partnership with Golden Thread Productions and co-directed by Jim Cave (who designed the mood-enhancing lights) and Darvag's Mansour Taeed (founder of the Iranian American children's theater Javane). The size of the cast is significant. The first arrivals enter singly, confused, lost, warily circling each other. It's only as family units begin to arrive, and the stage fills with still-perplexed newcomers, that a loose, tentative community takes shape -- with enough cohesion to inform a man who shows up speaking a different language that he's in the wrong room.
All of the characters have generic names. Some display different degrees of dislocation, such as the Psychiatrist (Emlyn Guiney), who can't remember her diagnostic terms. Some cling desperately to their families, as do the Tailor (Steven Ortiz), his scarf-clutching wife (Mojdeh Molavi) and child-man son (Erick Casanova). Others -- a haughty Elegant Lady (Firouzeh Farah), arrogant Colonel (Kevin Wm. Meyer) and his class-conscious wife (Suha Araj) -- try hard to assert their old-country privileged status.
Mysterious drones in Azi Vajravai's sound design, or shifts in the lights, unsettle the immigrants. Casual interactions develop into subplots, cleverly staged so that they emerge subtly from the general confusion. Youthful curiosity evolves into tender romance and a perhaps problematic marriage between Casanova's confused Tailor's Son and a magnetic Sahar Hojat as the Colonel's Daughter. A little girl (Shapari Samimi and Tara Taeed at alternate performances) is the only one who notices the suitcases everyone else clutches, until the adults convince her that she's mistaken.
The cultural baggage is real, of course, sometimes interfering with the characters' attempts to bond, but always kept closed. In one particularly astute scene, the wedding guests try fruitlessly to move or clap along to traditional Iranian music, their bodies only coming alive to the strains of a Mexican wedding tune.
Apart from that, though -- and Ortiz's energetic mime of the legend of the ancient Persian warrior Rostam -- there are few specific cultural references in "Suitcase." The drama is as universal as the immigrant experience that continues to define this country. Ayeesh's use of absurdism may be a bit schematic, and too obvious in his final depiction of the unifying role of the artist. But his "Suitcase" is pretty well packed.
The skewed-perspective, distressed-concrete room is as uninviting as it is anonymous. As each character enters -- distressed suitcase, briefcase or hat box clutched in one hand -- the door slams shut with a bang, re-echoed with the finality of a loud metallic clang. The psychological dislocation of the immigrant takes on the physical form of a "No Exit" antechamber to the unknown in Darvag Theater's "Suitcase (Chaméda-n)" at Intersection for the Arts.
The experience is universal, but the particular immigrant group that inspired Farhad Ayeesh's drama, as the program explains, was "the Iranian community in exile" in the Bay Area in the 1980s. Ayeesh, who has since returned to Iran (where he works in theater, TV and film), wrote "Suitcase" in Farsi for the East Bay Iranian American Darvag company he helped found in 1985. One of the group's early signature works, it's being staged in English for the first time in co-founder Bella Warda's cryptic translation.
It's a generally intriguing show, at times comic, evocative or affecting. Despite the "No Exit" look of Ali Dadgar's set, Ayeesh's script is more influenced by Ionesco than Sartre. But "Suitcase" uses Ionesco's absurdism to illuminate the experience of being displaced.
With a multicultural cast of 14 and enhanced production values, it's also a fairly ambitious undertaking, presented in partnership with Golden Thread Productions and co-directed by Jim Cave (who designed the mood-enhancing lights) and Darvag's Mansour Taeed (founder of the Iranian American children's theater Javane). The size of the cast is significant. The first arrivals enter singly, confused, lost, warily circling each other. It's only as family units begin to arrive, and the stage fills with still-perplexed newcomers, that a loose, tentative community takes shape -- with enough cohesion to inform a man who shows up speaking a different language that he's in the wrong room.
All of the characters have generic names. Some display different degrees of dislocation, such as the Psychiatrist (Emlyn Guiney), who can't remember her diagnostic terms. Some cling desperately to their families, as do the Tailor (Steven Ortiz), his scarf-clutching wife (Mojdeh Molavi) and child-man son (Erick Casanova). Others -- a haughty Elegant Lady (Firouzeh Farah), arrogant Colonel (Kevin Wm. Meyer) and his class-conscious wife (Suha Araj) -- try hard to assert their old-country privileged status.
Mysterious drones in Azi Vajravai's sound design, or shifts in the lights, unsettle the immigrants. Casual interactions develop into subplots, cleverly staged so that they emerge subtly from the general confusion. Youthful curiosity evolves into tender romance and a perhaps problematic marriage between Casanova's confused Tailor's Son and a magnetic Sahar Hojat as the Colonel's Daughter. A little girl (Shapari Samimi and Tara Taeed at alternate performances) is the only one who notices the suitcases everyone else clutches, until the adults convince her that she's mistaken.
The cultural baggage is real, of course, sometimes interfering with the characters' attempts to bond, but always kept closed. In one particularly astute scene, the wedding guests try fruitlessly to move or clap along to traditional Iranian music, their bodies only coming alive to the strains of a Mexican wedding tune.
Apart from that, though -- and Ortiz's energetic mime of the legend of the ancient Persian warrior Rostam -- there are few specific cultural references in "Suitcase." The drama is as universal as the immigrant experience that continues to define this country. Ayeesh's use of absurdism may be a bit schematic, and too obvious in his final depiction of the unifying role of the artist. But his "Suitcase" is pretty well packed.