Working as a flight attendant might be seen as a kind of constant, non-teleological journey that is in many aspects out of one's control but which will invariably encounter pockets of turbulence. In the new play Brace for Impact!, one can arguably perceive symbolic resonances between flight attendant Shiva's (Maia Nikiphoroff) work and her life. Written by Maia Nikiphoroff, who has worked as a full-time flight attendant herself, and currently in a workshop run at The Tank, Brace for Impact! represents the exciting first stage production from Always Wild Content, a theater, film, and television production company co-founded by Nikiphoroff and partner Austin Iredale with roots in the U.S. and Paraguay and a partnership with Women in Film Paraguay, a non-profit film education mentorship program for young women in Asuncion.
When we are introduced to Shiva, she is sporting an eye patch, for reasons which are eventually and hilariously clarified, and, while she is working yet another flight, her father is being cremated. She is also being dogged by a clown (Alan Ross, in a wonderful non-speaking performance) who may or may not be visible to others. Her name, as she points out, can refer not only to the god of creation and destruction but also the period of mourning in Judaism. And as Shiva reckons with her relationship to her father and who he was, with the accompaniment of more than one airplane-sized bottle of vodka, she also sifts through her past, such as her first solo visit to the gynecologist, and reckons also with her present, whether coming to terms with her mother (an extremely funny Monique Vukovic) as a sexual being, confronting an older cousin (Jorge Sánchez Díaz) for whom she once had romantic feelings, or being expected to speak at her father's funeral.
Jorge Sánchez Díaz and Maia Nikiphoroff. Photo credit: Luigi Morris
The play is structured as short chapters presented as flights, and Shiva similarly imagines her relationships–friends, relatives, and traumas–as organized in the different levels of a soul-housing Airbus. Some of those traumas are gendered: her husband's view of her as a "precious" thing, for example, in contrast to Shiva and her mother's frank discussions of issues with their bodies, represents a denial of the totality of women's physical embodiment and experience, and another figure comes to represent, in some sense, the various problematic men who have impacted her life. Occasional direct address of audience members or actors seated in the audience increases the sense of intimacy in an already intimate space, and the script's echoes and repetitions weave lyrical connections and unveil new perspectives, culminating in visually and emotionally striking final moments. Through it all and against an effectively minimalist set design, Nikiphoroff commands the stage as the spiky, unabashed, and resilient Shiva. Brace for Impact! marries ribald humor to existential (self-)examination for an experience that is even better than a seat in the exit row.
How To Eat an Orange Written by Catherine Filloux Based on the writing of Claudia Bernardi Directed by Elena Araoz Presented by La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club at The Downstairs at La MaMa 66 E 4th St., Manhattan, NYC May 30-June 16, 2024 Paula Pizzi. Photo by Steven Pisano How To Eat an Orange , making its world premiere at La MaMa, does in fact include a real orange as a prop, and its multifarious symbolizations–evoking at different points cultural specificity, family history, matriarchal inheritance, and even a skull–are representative of the play's boundary-blurring, non-linear presentation of memory. The memories in question belong to visual artist, educator, and activist Claudia Bernardi , who lived through several years of her native Argentina's military junta, which held power from 1976 to 1983, before departing her country and eventually settling in the United States. How To Eat an Orange , from Catherine Filloux, a French Algerian American award-winning playwright,...
American Blues: 5 Short Plays by Tennessee Williams Written by Tennessee Williams Directed by Jim Niesen Presented by the Irondale Ensemble Project at The Space at Irondale 85 South Oxford St., Brooklyn, NYC October 27-November 26, 2023 Shadenia Savid in Moony's Kids Don't Cry . Photo by Natasha Rotondaro In 1948, Tennessee Williams published American Blues , a collection of five one-act plays, and a remarkable new production of this collection by Brooklyn's Irondale shows that these works have lost none of their power to both entertain and challenge audiences in the intervening three-quarters of a century. Comprising plays written in the decade between 1936 and 1946 - Moony's Kids Don't Cry (1936); The Dark Room (1939); The Case of the Crushed Petunias (1941); The Long Stay Cut Short, or, the Unsatisfactory Supper (1946); and Ten Blocks on the Camino Real (1946) - American Blues represents the second part of Irondale's American Century, the first install...
Yoga with Jillian Written by Lia Romeo Directed by Andrew W. Smith Presented by Project Y Theatre and Richard Jordan Productions in association with The Pleasance June 2-17, 2023 Penguin in Your Ear Written and performed by Eliza Bent Directed by Jess Barbagallo June 10, 2023 Part of the Women in Theatre Festival , presented by Project Y Theatre at A.R.T./New York Theatres Michole Biancosino. Photo courtesy of Project Y Theatre This June, Project Y Theatre Company presents the eighth annual installment of its Women in Theatre Festival (WIT), which showcases new work by women and maintains "more than 50% female representation of all artists involved." This year, the festival includes a lobby installation project, titled In the Betweens , from scenic designer Chen-Wei Liao, through which audience members pass on their way into the theater proper. One first chooses first between "light" and "dark" rooms and then moves into "the gardens" before re...
Comments
Post a Comment