One boy, two countries, too many themes

The sounds of hammer dulcimer and didjeridoo open the Yale Rep's new production, Rice Boy, an original play by Sunil Kuruvilla, DRA '99, directed by Liz Diamond. The play intertwines the stories of two protagonists: Tommy, a 12-year-old Indian boy raised in Canada, and Tina, a 16-year-old Indian girl who cannot remember a time when she left the quiet seclusion of her front porch. He lives unhappily with his blundering father while she lives paralyzed as her parents' scramble to find her a fiancée. Tommy's hunt for acceptance and a normal life in Canada emerges amidst vignettes of the previous summer, which Tommy and his father spent in India. Created by superimposing one day over the space of a summer, we see a beautiful patchwork of individual and family stories. This aesthetically-pleasing production, however, stumbles under the weight of an overambitious script.

COURTESY YALE REP As he slowly steamed, Rice Boy dreamt of the day when he would finally become a Rice Man.

The play is staged with mesmerizing simplicity. Five floor-to-ceiling moveable panels form the backdrop of the stage, changing via lighting effects from a golden hot Indian swamp to a bleak and harshly lined Yukon tundra. A ladder stands in as a tree. The costuming, uncomplicated but authentic, infuses the production with alternating splashes of bright-hued saris and thickly-padded polar gear.

The script itself veers from moments of beautiful subtlety and humor to limp thematic predictability. The play begins with beautiful images of a grandmother teaching her daughter an important cultural art, skolam, and creating beautiful patterns out of rice powder. As this happens, we see Tommy and his father's botched attempts at communication. Unfortunately, during the rest of the play, these first promising stitches of cultural conflict between generations and locations get spoiled. The introduction of various other themes drags the content of the play into triteness. Hackneyed themes of father/son relationships, lost love, coming of age, reevaluation of ethnic identity in a foreign land, and even alienation from self parade clumsily throughout and demand little interpretation from the audience. Even political unrest is thrown into the mix, though it is sparingly treated by an overstuffed script that simply couldn't squeeze in another concern.

The play is only saved by interactions between players that lend it the warmth necessary to buoy the script. However, imagery and specific illustrations reflect these themes more successfully than the serious dialogue meant to deal with them. The duality in the backdrop of the stage reaches the audience far better in communicating alienation than Tommy's bland calls for help and his literal search for a new father. The play's elaborate timeline jumps are well-executed, and the dream scenes are effective. The mostly-transparent script comes with an unexpected twist at the end that lends the play some interest and a few great scenes between the extended family.

Theater

Rice Boy By Sunil Kuruvilla Directed by Liz Diamond Through Nov. 11 Yale Repertory Theater $26

The efforts of the cast range from wonderful to weak. Wayne Kasserman, who plays Tommy, is disappointing, though his cumbersome dialogue and clumsily-written crisis scenes certainly don't help his struggles. A notable example of this comes when he screams "I don't like you, you always get what you want!" at Tina (Angel Desai), a girl paralyzed below the waist. The supporting cast of family members makes the production more enjoyable to watch—Uncle (Sanjiv Jhaveri), screaming out, "Cheap electric company fucks!" brings laughter during a blackout. Yolande Bavan's performance as Granny is spectacular, especially during the surrealistic dream scenes when with delicacy and humor, she goes from flighty family matriarch to a nightmare figure. She recites some of the play's most beautiful images and clever lines. Desai is wonderful as Tommy's love interest and one of the most independently interesting characters of the whole play. Particularly impressive considering she is immobile from the waist down for the entire performance, Desai exudes a beauty and dignity that makes Tommy's attachment to her utterly believable.

Overall, the production's beautiful staging makes up for the script's failings. The staging and acting generally recompenses the failings of the script itself. Moreover, the production as a whole contains some great sequences. If the play had a narrower focus and did not try to encompass every possible facet of human experience, it could have been great, with a mellowed originality that its present reach prevents it from fully cultivating. Though flawed, Rice Boy is an engaging show.

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