NEW YORK—If you're sitting up close, and a character onstage threatens to hurl a bucketful of bones at you, you duck. But then,… you realize, it's only soft white feathers.
Such is one evocative event in Naomi Wallace's The Fever Chart: Three Visions of the Middle East, a poetic yet very strong play. An offering of the Public Theater's new Public Lab series and produced in association with LAByrinth Theater Company, the project is committed to presenting new raw and relevant plays that support the Public's receptivity to the large public issues of our time.
The Fever Chart certainly meets that commitment. Based on actual events, here are three short plays, set in three different parts of the Middle East, dealing with personal issues that expand to embrace the political and universal.
Vision One: A State of Innocence takes place in a zoo-like space in Rafah, Palestine in 2002. A Palestinian woman, Um Hisham (Lameece Issaq) enters and wraps her head in a scarf. Yuval (Arian Moayed), an Israeli soldier, seems to be cleaning a cage, and discusses with Um Hisham his relationships with various animals, including a porcupine who "winks, " two emus, and others.
Shlomo, an Israeli architect (Waleed F. Zuaiter), comes and informs the others that he is assigned to redesign the zoo, which has received a lot of damage. And he exits. But the major players are Um Hisham and Yuval, whose fates have intertwined, in a poignant exchange of mutual family tragedies.
Vision Two: Between this Breath and You is arguably the centerpiece of the trio. Set in a clinic waiting room in West Jerusalem, the Palestinian Mourid (Waleed F. Zuaiter) waits patiently, to see the nurse, Tanya. Sami, an Israeli of Moroccan descent (Arian Moayed), enters to mop the premises.
When the rather arrogant Tanya Langer enters, she tries to dismiss Mourid, as it is now after hours. When he insists on staying she endeavors to help him medically, but it becomes clear that he has another goal. He insists that part of his deceased son is inside Tanya. What develops in their discussion makes for a fascinating and compelling drama, illustrating human interconnectedness. That Tanya may not survive very much longer is also a potent feature.
In Vision Three: The Retreating World, Ali, a young Iraqi (Omar Metwally), first talks of his love for books, and their usages in addition to reading them. He goes on to discuss his love for birds, and the unwarranted death of his grandmother, because her needed medication was prohibited from being imported into Iraq. The pain of war hovers over everything, including the untimely death of a dear friend.
Under the sensitive direction of Jo Bonney, performances are deeply moving, while the sets (Rachel Hauck) and lighting (Lap Chi Chu) combine to make this production convey a vivid, long-lasting impression.
The Fever Chart: Three Visions of the Middle East
The Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street
Tickets: (212) 967-7555 or www.publictheater.org
Closed
Diana Barth writes and publishes "New Millennium," an arts newsletter. For information, contact: diabarth@juno.com
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