Surviving the Nian |
Surviving the Nian (presented by the Theater Offensive at the Calderwood Pavilion through May 5) is a love story, a cultural study, and a sprawling musical in the tradition of a home-for-the-holidays play — sort of. Now getting its world premiere, this Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Award–winning work by promising 23-year-old folk-pop singer-songwriter Melissa Li and Theater Offensive artistic director Abe Rybeck finds Kaylin and Asha, lovers who live an out life in Boston, visiting Kaylin’s family in Hong Kong for the Chinese New Year. Kaylin hasn’t come out to her mother, uncle, or brother, and they’re thinking that the relative whose American education they contributed to has returned to help support them. Worse, at least for rigid mom, is that Asha is black, and underlying racism and homophobia come to a slow boil in the deft script. Not to mention the family’s need of a financial boost: Uncle Tony’s acupuncture business is waning, and brother Vincent (Hyunsoo Moon) is about to marry long-time sweetheart Jessie, in which role Mariko Kanto gives a hilarious turn as a giddy pop-culture slave who’s lasso’d awkward Vincent into opening a luxe dog boutique.
Li, who spent four years developing Nian with Rybeck, weaves Asian melodies into jazz-tinged numbers and ballads, capturing the immensity of Hong Kong in “Awake with Me,” a pop-infused love song to the frenzied metropolis, and the city’s village-like aspect in the mother’s “New Year’s Greetings.” She also has a knack for translating complicated emotions into melody, so each song pushes the story forward. Comic touches in her lyrics keep your attention focused. Megumi Haggerty plays Kaylin with a steely-eyed determination that disintegrates in the face of family and culture. As Asha, Abria Smith is self-assured and has the vocal chops to match.
Self-assurance is what three nosy neighbors in a Manhattan building lack in Melissa James Gibson’s Obie-winning [sic], which is getting its area premiere from Devanaughn Theatre (through May 6). Theo (Ben Lambert), a classically trained composer writing music for a theme-park ride, has designs on Babette (Amanda Good Hennessey), a broke writer. Frank (Michael Steven Costello), an aspiring auctioneer, has his eyes on Theo. These too-intelligent-for-their-own-good twentysomethings are mired in the ramifications of mistakes they’ve made, and that leaves them navel-gazing brooders bordering on the paranoid.
Gibson’s script takes the form of fugue-like musings written in a style redolent of Ionesco. The language can be distancing, but director Rose Carlson brings a realistic intimacy to the production by making optimal use of the theater’s tiny confines. At times the set extends into the audience, and that makes you feel you’re in the apartments, as guilty of meddling as the characters are in one another’s lives.
