Review: “Red Hills”

Red Hills transforms an empty office space into the grasslands of Rwanda, providing a place for dialogue and personal justice.

According to the “official version” of the events, the Rwandan genocide started on April 6, 1994 and lasted for a hundred days. But according to our guide God’s Blessing (a Tutsi genocide survivor himself, played by the radiant Patrick J. Ssenjovu), there were many instances of genocide. As tourists from America, we often get our facts from secondary sources, but even the most well-intended of them might be mistaken or straight up hiding the truth.

Sifiso Mabena in Red Hills. Photo by Hunter Canning.

Red Hills, a site-specific production based on Sean Christopher Lewis's play Dogs of Rwanda, questions who has the right to tell history. Asiimwe Deborah Kawe, Red Hills’ co-author of Ugandan decent, joins her voice to Lewis's in order to create a dialogue of equals. The result is an honest conversation, full of laughter and heartache, between unlikely companions in misery. The seamless collaboration of two authors elevates the monologue of a privileged white man (Dogs of Rwanda) and returns the voice to those whose story it is in the first place. 

After checking in at the lobby of a building in the Financial District, we scan our badges and get to the 9th floor, the newly opened headquarters of The Peacebuilding Hub, an NGO. Founder and CEO David Zosia (Christopher McLinden) has made it his mission to bring peace and forgiveness to the countries disturbed by conflicts of war after witnessing the mass killings of Tutsi. As part of his presentation, Dr. Zosia reads from Dogs of Rwanda, a memoir he wrote as a young adult, which made him world famous. He tells of how he went to Uganda as a part of missionary group when he was 16 and met a boy of the same age called God’s Blessing. 

As David’s face flushes from nervousness and discomfort, the ghosts of the unresolved past enter the clean office space. God’s Blessing joyfully rides on his bike across the stage and hallucinatory voices call from the corners (masterful sound design by Farai Malianga). Before he finishes, the metaphorical tribune is snatched from beneath David’s feet and the audience is under the spell of a new narrator, God’s Blessing. All of a sudden, we are on our feet, sightseeing in Rwanda.   

The handsome tour guide immediately wins us over with his contagious smile and pride for his travel agency. Ssenjovu’s performance is lively and forceful, and watching him savor Kawe’s tart jokes is very refreshing. The effect is strengthened by the contrast of horrifying stories of genocide in which his entire family perished. God’s Blessing shows us Ntarama Church, now a memorial, where the mass killings took place. The clothes that people wore that day lie on the benches and hang from a rope tied across the room. This part of the journey feels a little cramped as the audience passes by this haunting sight in a constantly moving conveyor with no time to really look at the installation and reflect. 

Another large space of an office building under construction is transformed into the African Great Lakes region with efficient minimalism. The stark white walls are lit from below (spot-on lighting design by Brian Aldous and Adam Macks) and are in perfect dissonance with the crude concrete floor and spotted ceiling. Red dirt hills framing the room are mounted with wisps of tall grass. A monumental disc of the sun occupies one side of the room, and a semi-circle of wooden benches and cushions is on the other. This is where God’s Blessing takes David after picking him up at the airport for their private Gacaca, with the audience as witnesses. 

Gacaca court is a form of traditional communal justice that was restarted in 2001 by the new Rwandan government, which was unable to put the 130,000 alleged perpetrators of genocide through the official court system. God’s Blessing seeks his own justice as he and David recreate the events of the night they first set forth in search of God’s Blessing’s missing parents. The scrupulous unwinding of the past is filled with bitterness and horror, and the poignant singing and music by Farai Malianga and Sifiso Mabena backs up the meditative pace. Dressed in traditional African clothes (costumes by Angela M. Fludd), they, like mirages of God’s Blessing’s parents, appear and disappear but are always present through sound. ­        

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Red Hills plays at 101 Greenwich Street, 9th Floor, through July 1, 2018. Running time is 95 minutes with no intermission. Performances are Tuesdays through Saturdays at 8 and Sundays at 7. Tickets are $25 and $45 and are available at engardearts.org.

Red Hills is by Asiimwe Deborah Kawe and Sean Christopher Lewis. Directed by Katie Pearl. Set Design by Adam Rigg. Lighting Design by Brian Aldous and Adam Macks. Sound Design and Composition by Farai Malianga. Costume Design by Angela M. Fludd. Production Stage Manager is Andrea Wales.  

The cast is Patrick J. Ssenjovu and Christopher McLinden. Live Music by Farai Malianga and Sifiso Mabena.

(This Review was published on theasy.com on 6/14/18)

Review: “This Was The End”

A deconstruction of Uncle Vanya using video projections, where the past and present are in dialogue over aging and the perception of time.

(Like the review for Seagullmachine, which we wrote with Ran Xia, another play that was a dialogue of sorts, we decided to write this review in dialogue form.)

Paul Zimet and Rae C Wright in This Was The End. Photo by Brian Rogers.

Ran Xia: This Was The End is the deconstruction of a classic, one that focuses more on the relationship between the core characters from Uncle Vanya, rather than what happens in the play.

Asya Danilova: Essentially, this play is Uncle Vanya scrambled and stripped down to four characters whose relationships are described in three sentences on a little black board in the beginning of the show:   

Ran: “Vanya (Paul Zimet) loves Yelena (Rae C Wright); Sonya (Black-Eyed Susan) loves Astrov (Jim Himelsbach); Yelena married the professor.” (That last is Sonya’s father, who isn’t present in this production). These are the only facts presented to the audience as the “essence,” the only thing we need to know to follow the plot.

Asya: I don’t think that the plot matters much in this case. Uncle Vanya is only a starting point, an inspiration, and ultimately a contextual frame to talk about time, aging, and the end of life. Or the ends? Apparently there can be multiple, as this production shows.  

Ran: However, as someone who’s already familiar with Uncle Vanya and didn’t need a recap, I was leery of the accessibility of this production. I'm not sure it would be as accessible to those who don't know Chekhov. Since none of the characters gets an establishment scene, the storytelling, or the lack thereof, stood out to me.

Asya: Certainly those who are unfamiliar with Chekhov’s text will have a different experience, but they won’t necessarily be at disadvantage. There is always a pleasure in recognizing the source and being able to see how the creators of the new piece read the original. But there is an equal pleasure in tripping in the unknown with the little context that you are provided. And I feel like This Was The End successfully caters to both audiences.   

Ran: What the production attempts to explore is the perception of time, à la Proust’s notion: the convergence of the past and the present. And I think it is successful due to the clever design elements. The use of echoing is consistent across departments. Thanks to a hidden tape DJ (G Lucas Crane), fragments of texts from Vanya are played out from cassette tapes throughout the show, as the actors speak over the recording half a beat behind the tape. You hear both layers of voices, as if the present is repeating a memory. So when we get to Sonya’s famous monologue “we shall rejoice and look back upon our sorrow here; a tender smile—and—we shall rest”—one of the only times in this production when the text is spoken by a live actor alone—it’s all the more powerful.

Asya: Video (by Keith Skretch), projected onto a wall made of sliding panels, also supports the idea of duality. Throughout the show we see two “casts,” both live actors and their pre-recorded video projections. Actors go in and out of sync with their “digital ghosts,” chasing them or getting replaced by them. This Was The End is a great example of how video art can be fully integrated into performance.

Ran: Exactly—the opening sequence is gripping with the use of projections. The entire set pulsates like a boombox before opening up to introduce Sonya, the first person to step out through the sliding door. At one point I was even wondering whether the whole set is a hologram, or if there is indeed a solid set (Peter Ksander). It's the latter, and it's made out of a piece of wall preserved from the original Mabou Mines theatre. And having a piece of the company's literal past further compounds the weight of the Proustian concept of “lost time.” One of the most haunting scenes is when Sonya, Vanya, Yelena, and Astrov sit against the wall, and in a moment of solemnity, look as if they are making eye contact with projections of themselves—a true dialogue between the past and the present.

Asya: And this is not just some abstract “past” of a 19th-century Russian estate, but the immediate past of these very actors playing those characters. Sonya, Vanya, Astrov and Elena look like residents of a retirement home—abandoned, lost in their memories, and bound to perform the roles they have already committed themselves to for the rest of their life. And maybe it is a total coincidence, but G. Lucas Crane's green t-shirt reminded me of scrubs.

Ran: This sense of as retirement home might be because of the age of the characters. One of the most important features of this production is that all four characters from Uncle Vanya are performed by actors over the age of 60, which enhances the storytelling. Black-Eyed Susan delivers a perfect blend of someone who’s been stuck in the role of a “wallflower,” but also has a quiet strength. It’s a very different experience seeing older actors perform as these recognizable characters who have suffered the passage of time.

Asya: I think there is not enough compelling talk about aging in theater. The tone is usually either tragic (King Lear-esque pathos of descending into darkness) or cheery (“It’s never too late for anything”). This Was The End is sincere about aging, and the desperation harvested from Uncle Vanya is bone-chilling.            

Ran: I was also moved by how the characters are portrayed here. It’s heartbreaking to witness the inevitable etchings of time, but at the same time, there is no lack of humor and delight. And perhaps it is this juxtaposition that makes the tragedy more pronounced.

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This Was The End plays at Mabou Mines Theater, 150 First Avenue, through June 16, 2018. Running time is 65 minute with no intermission. Remaining performances are Thursday 6/14 through Saturday 6/16 at 8. Tickets are $25 (Students $15) and are available at maboumines.org or by calling 866-811-4111.  

This Was The End is created and directed by Mallory Catlett, based on Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov. Set Design by Peter Ksander. Video by Keith Skretch. Lighting Design by Chris Kuhl. Live Sound Score and Video Manipulation by G. Lucas Crane. Costume Design by Oliver Gajic. Interaction Design by Ryan Holsopple. Choreography by Johanna Meyer. Tech Director is Bill Kennedy. Production Stage Manager is Kelly Allen. Stage Manager is Courtney Golden.

The cast is Black-Eyed Susan, James Himelsbach, Rae C. Wright, and Paul Zimet.

(This review was published on theasy.com on 6/12/18)