By Robert Bethune
I was writing that "Heather Raffo's 9 Parts of Desire," now on stage at Performance Network Theatre, is a highly thought-provoking play. But no. It's a FEELINGS-provoking play. It is, at heart, while offering much food for thought, a series of passionate outbursts. How many ways are there to burst out? We can burst out laughing, we can burst out crying; we can burst out in many ways, all of them fundamentally emotional, not intellectual. The cry from the heart is not about ideas. It establishes itself at its own level, that of the heart, not of the mind.
The nine people whose voices are heard in this play all come to us through Sarab Kamoo, the sole performer. A one-person performance makes strenuous demands on the technical and vocal skills of the performer, which she answers fully, but the real source of her success in this performance is the same as the sources of the play itself – passion, the passionate inhabiting of each of nine souls turn and turn about, as we hear each voice, each outburst.
That being said, I am becoming less and less a fan of the one-person genre, because I see more and more one-person productions that do not deliver a complete theatrical experience. I am a greedy theatergoer; I want it all, not just the steak, OR the sides, OR the wine, but the steak AND the sides AND the wine. This play, like many one-person productions today, is weak on DRAMA, the vital image of something important HAPPENING, HERE AND NOW before me; SHOWN, not TOLD. A performer cannot give that to a script; the script must provide it to the performer. These nine stories are beautifully TOLD–not SHOWN.
Monika Essen's scenery and Mary Cole's sensitively understated lighting are first-rate.
REVIEW:
'Heather Raffo's 9 Parts of Desire'
Produced in association with Water Works Theatre Company and the Arab Theatrical Arts Guild at Performance Network Theatre, 120 E. Huron St., Ann Arbor. Thu.-Sun. through Oct. 26. Tickets: $25-$41. For information: 734-663-0681 or http://www.performancenetwork.org.
