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Regional Reviews: Los Angeles
This certainly helps one's understanding of Vilar's play, in which three women fight over a man who isn't so much an actual character in the play, but a fairly simple being, driven pretty much solely by his desire to have sex with increasingly younger women. Thus, he leaves his 55-year-old wife for a 40-year-old, who is quite happy with the situation until such time as he meets a 25-year-old yoga instructor. But the play isn't about him; the play is about the women and the games they play to gain possession of the man. (The fact that nothing in the play suggests he's even worth fighting over is set to one side.) What makes the production interesting is the unique path it took to get to Los Angeles. Originally written by Vilar in Spanish, the work was translated into Norwegian, then Norwegian Sign Language by Teater Manu (Norway's sign language theatre), then American Sign Language by Deaf West ... and, somewhere along the line, spoken English. The finished product at [Inside] the Ford is performed by Teater Manu in American Sign Language and voiced in English by another member of the company sitting in the audience. It sounds like a child's game of "Telephone"—what we're getting is at least three languages away from the original. The fact that this production exists at all is quite remarkable; that Teater Manu's performers give effective performances using a sign language that is not their own is downright impressive. Mira Zuckermann plays the 55-year-old Helen, a lawyer who initially does not believe the email from 40-year-old Yana—who happens to live in the same high-rise building—claiming that Yana is having an affair with Helen's husband. But Yana has incontrovertible evidence (a rather convenient hidden room in the apartment building, from which Helen can peek into Yana's bedroom and see for herself). Faced with the evidence, Helen is resigned to the truth, and throws her husband out. But anger and jealousy (not a green-eyed monster, according to the video projections, but a red-eyed monster with lizard-like green skin) take over, and Helen eventually falls apart. The play is billed as a dark comedy, but Zuckermann finds the truth in Helen, as the woman who was initially so polished finds herself wallowing in loneliness and despair. Ipek D. Mehlum does a convincing job as Yana, Helen's 40-year-old rival. Yana starts the play holding all the cards: she has the better apartment which Helen had wanted, and now she has Helen's husband. Mehlum's Yana is very proud of herself for how completely she is destroying Helen's life—she spins around her chair in gleeful victory, and is downright rapturous that everything is going her way. But when the man who left Helen for Yana leaves Yana for someone younger, Yana's descent into jealousy is more comic than Helen's was. It's hard to feel any sympathy for her furniture-throwing anger—and, as Helen happily points out, Yana had it coming anyway. Hearing audiences might find the single voice actress interpreting from the audience to be a bit different from the standard Deaf West experience, where signing and speaking are often paired onstage to fully convey each character. And, to be sure, sometimes Kjersti's Fjeldstad's heavily accented translations aren't entirely comprehensible. (More than once, I found myself replaying her lines in my head, while thinking about what the performer signed, and figuring out the meaning from a combination of verbal and visual clues.) But there is no doubt that the cast successfully puts the play across. There are some issues, though, with the play itself. It certainly depends on a lot of coincidences: the three women living in the same high-rise; the presence of secret spying rooms in the building; Yana being an architect who designed the building and knows about the secret spying rooms; and several others. You need to do more than suspend disbelief for Sjalusi to work; you just have to accept everything and go along for the ride. Sjalusi runs at [Inside] the Ford through May 4, 2014. For tickets and information, see www.deafwest.org. Deaf West presents Teater Manu's production of Sjalusi. Director: Magne Olav Aarsand Brevik; Scenography: Per Olav A. Austdahl; Actress: Mira Zuckermann; Actor: Ipek D. Mehlum; Actress/Dancer: Anne-Line Kirste; Voice actress/Dramaturgy assistant: Kjersti Fjeldstad; Lighting designer: Evelina Dembacke; Video and motion graphic design: Agata Wisny; Scenetekniker/Statist: Olgeir J. Hartvedt; ASL master: Troy Kotsur; Head of costumes: Ingvill Fjeldstad; Masks: Hanna Lara Olafsdottir; Production Dramaturg: Tine Thomassen; Choreographer: Stacey Rasch-Olsen; Costume consultant: Mira Runningen; Producer: Paal Richard Peterson; Sign language interpreter: Anne Stordal; Sign language interpreter: Siri Gjellan; Sign language interpreter: Salvi Zuckermann; Sign language interpreter: Marianne Larosi; Sign language interpreter: Guri Holtungen; Sign language interpreter: Vigdis S. Peterson; Administration secretary/Head of ticket sales: Jeanett R. Hagen; Information consultant: Morten Sletten; Technical Director: Christian Pine.
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