Tonight I jumped back into the KC theater
scene to see “The Oldest Boy” by Sarah Ruhl at the Unicorn Theatre. This
particular performance was unique because the show was framed initially around
actual Tibetan monks who are currently visiting from India. Before the show
began they greeted audience members with hand clasps and head bows, all the
while performing ritualistic chants specific to their Buddhist faith. When Cynthia
Levin, Producing Artistic Manager and director, introduced the monks to us
before the show, she also informed us they would accompany us in the audience.
Not only did we dive into foreign anxieties and traditions specific to Tibetan
monks and those who practice this faith in the US, but these special guests also
saw represented on stage our perception of their own struggles, beliefs, and
traditions. Trippy, eh?
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| Front facade |
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| Before the show |
“The Oldest Boy” premiered a year ago at
the Lincoln Center and is currently being produced simultaneously by the
Unicorn Theater (KC) and the Marin Theatre Company (SF). The narrative of this
story surrounds a racially-mixed couple who learn that Tibetan monks believe
their three year old son is the reincarnation of a former teacher in Nepal.
Faced with the decision to give up their son to be enthroned within a monk
community or rejecting this proposal and living a more traditional American
life, the couple must face each other and their religious upbringings, their
emotional attachments to family, and their commitment to each other.
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| American living room for first act |
There’s one aesthetic outlier to this
whole story: the boy is a puppet. Manipulated by two puppeteers the rest of the
cast interact with the boy as if he were real, but the audience, or at least
myself, struggled to push away the obvious detachment between a real boy and a
puppet. However, when the couple decides to let the boy live out a monk’s
reincarnated life back in Nepal, the man who manipulated the puppet, and who
spoke for the puppet, transforms himself into the enthroned and grown-up
version of Oldest Boy. What does it say that the boy is a puppet? Does he have
agency? This surprising element of the production raises questions about how
parents approach their children and attachment/agency issues.
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| Alex Espy (puppeteer), the Oldest Boy puppet & myself (from left to right) |
At first the plot-line sounds totally far-fetched
for a traditional Judeo-Christian Midwestern audience, but I was drawn time and
again to the clever threads that connected these two cultures and religions.
For example, at one point Mother makes a Biblical reference to the idea of
giving up her son to the Tibetan monks like Abraham offering his son Isaac for
a sacrifice, or Jesus Christ dying for the Father. Or the other moment, masterfully
performed, when the Lama who has only experienced monkhood, and Mother, who has
experienced traditional American life, shed tears over losing loved ones in
their past. These remarkable, intimate moments unify the two worlds with
traditional spiritual narratives as well as raw human emotion. What at first
seemed completely foreign became tremendously personal.
If I might indulge on one more aspect of
the production this evening it would be the idea of reincarnation as
translation. At the end of the play Mother leaves behind her son and
rededicates her passion for literature with translation between English and
Tibetan. She affirms her new career is similar to reincarnation in that while
she creates a new work through translation, the concept or idea does not disappear
between the two works. Amanda Boyle, the resident literary manager and
dramaturg at Unicorn, quoted Reborn in
the West when she describes reincarnation as the ability to “remain
conscious through the transition from death to rebirth” (playbill). In a way,
when we translate, that transition from one language to another requires that
the concept and idea remain consistent, just as the life of a person who dies
and is reborn stays consistent with the essence of that person, no matter what
sign or form they select in the next life.
“The Oldest Boy” ends this weekend, so if
you want to see this incredible production I would suggest you take action now.
A big thanks to all who participated in this evening’s performance and for
those who made the night extremely enjoyable.
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| Special thanks to Yve Rojas (right), member of the Board of Directors, for offering me an amazing experience |
