NEW YORK—One of the more enjoyable annual theatrical events of early summer is Desipina & Company's Seven.11 Convenience Theatre. The show consists of seven 11-minute plays written by South Asian and Asian-Pacific American playwrights, each set in an American convenience store, though the location of the store and the characters involved vary from play to play. (Most of the actors play multiple roles.)
Things start off nicely with the comedic Soul Saving Sundays, where the 20-something Ganesh (Nick Choksi) becomes a self-styled guru, listening to customers confessing their sins while he offers absolutions and advice via a confessional made from rolls of toilet paper. However, Ganesh may need some advice of his own when he spies his ex-girlfriend (Sheila (Shaigany) with another man.
This play is followed by the most pointedly satirical work in the bunch, What Not To Sell. On the surface, a spoof of home makeover shows (in this case, it's the store that's set for a makeover), it quickly turns into a lesson on the dangers of conformity and homogenization as the hilariously over-the-top television hosts (Shaigany, Don Castro) begin to take away the store's ethnic flavor in order to make it totally American.
Things get more serious with the bittersweet Scenery, where a Slurpee machine (Jason Stroud) comes to life one night and tries to bring some joy to a bitter teenage girl (Laura Anderson) and the harried (and married) store manager (Choksi) with whom she's having an affair. The most touching piece of the evening, the story is fraught with irony as it becomes obvious that the "machine" is far more alive (and open) than the two human characters.
Hitting perhaps closest to reality are the next two stories, which deal with family life and the responsibilities therein. In Selfish, a young woman (Anna Itty) runs into her missing brother (Seri James), who's working in a convenience store, and takes him to task for abandoning the family, leaving her to deal with their demanding parents. He responds by noting that he could no longer take being "the good son" and had to leave for his own sanity.
In One Dollar Box, Sun (Anderson) has turned to drug dealing to help her family make ends meet after her father (Castro) lost his job. However, said father doesn't help things by continually buying lottery tickets at a local store.
In both of these tales, it's the children who are taking care of the parents' needs. (The scene in One Dollar Box where Sun gives her dad a monthly stipend out of her drug money reminds one of a child getting an allowance from an adult. One can also feel the father's humiliation and shame at being forced to take the cash so he and his wife can survive.) Castro stands out in Box as the father who keeps looking for a quick fix, while Anderson chillingly portrays a girl pushed too far as she tries to keep her family together.
Rounding out the evening are 99 Problems, a spoof on interracial dating where a young white man (Stroud) wants to date an Indian girl and receives some advice on the subject from the store clerk (Castro) and two policemen (Anderson, James) who happen to drop by; and A Minor In Convenience, a politically incorrect musical piece in which teenagers try to buy alcohol but are stopped by the store manager (James) who may have forgotten what is was like to be their age—or perhaps he remembers all too well.
What makes the entire show work so well is that each piece contains themes that are universal—a broken home, an unhappy marriage, unrequited love, the struggle to survive, the pangs of growing up, and how to fit in. Additionally, each play is a life lesson on how we can't hide from our responsibilities. These elements cut across all ethnic boundaries and racial lines, allowing the entire audience to relate to them.
With only 11 minutes to tell an entire story, all the characters by necessity come across immediately as fully formed, be they intentional caricatures or flesh-and-blood people.
In addition to the tightly written scripts and the excellent casting, Sherri Eden Barber's direction of the plays is quite strong, with every moment and action telegraphing a part of the tale being told. Set design by Shehab Hossain is very good, as are the lights by Jeff McCrum, sound (by Barber), and costumes by Jenny Fisher.
Also in the cast is Manoj Advani.
The plays were written by Uday Jhunjhunwala, Naveen Bahar Choudhary, Jon Kern, Deen, Eugene Oh, Vishakan Jeykumar and Matt Schatz, Rehana Mizra & Naomi Lee.
Seven.11 Convenience Theatre (2008)
Presented by Desipina & Company
Richmond Shepard Theatre
309 East 26th Street
Tickets: 212-352-3101 or
www.desipina.org or
www.desiclub.com
Closes June 22, 2008
Running time: Approximately 90 Minutes
Judd Hollander is the New York correspondent for the London publication The Stage.
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