Displaying items by tag: Omer Abbas Salem

Penelope Skinner’s latest play, Linda, now receiving its United States Premiere at Steep Theatre, begins with the title character’s plea that attention must be paid…to women of a certain age. The seemingly inconsequential references to King Lear, Death of a Salesman and other tragic male protagonists become progressively more resonant as Linda (rivetingly portrayed by Kendra Thulin), accustomed to being the protagonist of her of life, fights for relevance and “visibility” as she finds herself being pushed to the margins both professionally and personally. Meanwhile, several characters make the case for irrelevance and invisibility. The questions raised by Skinner’s play are both timeless and timely, and she covers a lot of ground in its two and a half hours. Under Robin Witt’s direction, Linda is a scathing examination of the values of contemporary society and the impact that success has on those who strive for it. Linda is both entertaining and infuriating, Shakespearian in scope, and painfully human to its core. In a Chicago theater season that features several plays with middle aged characters trying to remain consequential in a youth-focused society, Linda confronts the issue through an unsparing lens that may make you want to look away, but if you don’t, your attention will be rewarded.

Linda is a senior brand manager at a cosmetics company called Swan Beauty Corporation, not to be confused with another company with an avian appellation, which is rolling out a new anti-aging cream. The author of the highly successful earlier “Real Beauty” campaign, which combined beauty products and self-esteem program, Linda’s marketing idea is “Visibility,” which would focus on women over 50. 25-year-old Amy has a counter-proposal based on her own experience, targeting women in their 20’s and 30’s who may be seeing, and fearing, the first hints of lines and crows’ feet: “Hi, Beautiful.” Amy has been inspired by Linda, but also sees her as a hurdle on her way to achieving her well-mapped life goals: marry by age 26, career well underway by age 29, two children shortly thereafter (because any later and neither her body nor her career will ping back). Amy is pragmatic, ruthless, terrified and terrifying. Making decisions about both of these women’s futures is Dave, who condescends, cuts off and mansplains while extolling his understanding of women. Drifting in and out of the office is Luke, a cheeky, gossipy temp, biding his time before running off to join an intentional community of people who share his belief that everything is an illusion. Linda’s hard-earned reality also includes two daughters. Alice, 25, is struggling to get over a viral photo incident that left her too visible and derailed her plans for a career in engineering. Bridget, 15, has a big audition for a drama academy coming up, and is trying to figure out how to stand out from the crowd, to say nothing of getting noticed by her career-obsessed mother and internet-surfing father. Husband Neil has just started a band, with a younger, attractive frontwoman, Stevie.

Director Robin Witt again demonstrates her ability to let no one off the hook, in a production that ranges from hilarious to heartrending to queasy. As we watch the events of Linda spiral out of control, the layers of complicity become almost nauseatingly clear. On a sleek set by Joe Schermoly (nothing comfortable or homey in this home that Linda has worked so many decades to create), under the harsh, sharply-focused lights by Brandon Wardell, and immersed in the portentous sound design by designer/composer Thomas Dixon, there is no softening of the realities the characters face. Costume designer Izumi Inaba perfectly captures the generational and motivational differences of the players. Props designers Emma Cullimore and Derik Marcussen add the minimal trappings of lives lived in spaces focused on mind and body—no one is responsible for the creation of anything tangible in this world, though they are capable of building and destroying lives.

As Linda, the award-winning executive who is about to be confronted with her legacy in a way she never anticipated, Kendra Thulin delivers a remarkable performance, teetering on the knife edge of a breakdown as she struggles to hang on to everything she has worked for since her early 20’s. Her Linda is certainly not always likeable—she is deliberately unapologetic and sometimes cruel as she tries to be the parent she believes her daughters need, and she is as relentless as those who are trying to unsettle her. As her nemesis and successor Amy, Rochelle Therrien is deliciously awful, but also reveals the fear that propels Amy as she claws her way to the top, belittling others to make herself look better. Destini Huston captures the pain that Linda’s daughter carries from being trapped in a past that she is not allowed to forget, and from being told to “get over it” when no one else is held accountable. Watching Huston’s Alice find another way to deal with her viral fame is both excruciating and hopeful. Caroline Phillips deserves credit simply for her performance as spectator, as 15-year-old Bridget watches the adults around her struggle to maintain their grip on their lives, but she goes well beyond this as she struggles to find her role—literally and figuratively--and get noticed by her parents and the auditors at the drama school where she is auditioning. Peter Moore’s schoolteacher Neil conveys the nice guy qualities that all the other people around him admire while showing his discomfiture with the rock and roll life he is trying on. Lucy Carpetyan’s Stevie, the lead singer/groupie in Neil’s rock band, is coming to terms with not being either Linda or Neil, as she tries to become relevant in her own life. Omer Abbas Salem is maddening and thoroughly charming as Luke, who proves that, with the right attitude, consequences can be for others. As he glibly touches the lives of those he meets, exacerbating their existential struggles, his idea that “everything is just as it should be” if one just lets go of one’s data becomes more than a little compelling. Finally, belying Linda’s belief in her “changing the world one girl at a time” campaign, is evidence that change is a long time coming, in the smug, self-satisfied and casually menacing portrayal by Jim Poole of company president Dave, who still holds all the cards, even if a few women have breached the board room.

Linda is a startling and pointed indictment of first world problems, from the need to remain visible and relevant even if one is not Helen Mirren, to the superficial measures of success that we choose, to the right to privacy that is too easily invaded. Playwright Penelope Skinner offers no easy answers for the mess people have gotten themselves into as she throws the spotlight onto Linda, who at first appears to be the apex of a new social order but ends up being vulnerable to the forces she helped unleash. The play touches on the many ways people find to diminish each other—age, gender, class, career, beauty—and ultimately suggests we may be focusing on the wrong things. Robin Witt and a uniformly strong ensemble, led by a poised yet emotionally raw Kendra Thulin, tackle the layered text with intelligence and wry humor, capturing the unmet potential and alienation of our ultra-exposed, ultra-networked modern lives.

Linda runs through August 18 at Steep Theatre, 1115 West Berwyn, Thursdays – Saturdays at 8:00 pm and Sundays at 3:00 pm. For more information and tickets visit www.steeptheatre.com or call 773-649-3186.

*Extended through September 1st

Griffin Theatre’s In To America is a stark reminder of the contributions made by the many immigrants that have come from all around the world and have made the United States what it is today. In writer Bill Massolia’s multicultural story, American history is retold by several immigrant narratives where sixty personal stories are shared spanning over thirty countries. The play begins with the American immigration experience from Jamestown in the early 17th century and covers the 400 years since, many of its stories remarkable as they are daring. 

We hear the good and the bad. In many stories we get a taste of the shameful mistreatment immigrants received upon their arrival, the brave new world of vast opportunity they were seeking no more than a hostile environment that spews hate for the simple fact of being different. In others (not nearly as many) we hear how immigrants were received with opens arms, their dreams fulfilled as their new home offers the new life they had so desperately had hoped for. In this condensed history lesson we also learn the hardships endured throughout perilous journeys in leaving their own countries in daring escapes from their own native countries. 

“We never crossed the border. The border crossed us,” we are profoundly told from Juanita Andersen who portrays a Mexican landowner after being squeezed out by new arrivals during the Manifest Destiny.  

The series of monologues flows quickly as the story follows a timeline that is rich in information covering such events as congress adopting the uniform rule in 1790 so that any white person could apply for citizenship after two years of residency, the Dred Scott decision in 1857 declaring free Africans non-citizens, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1902, Native Americans made citizens in 1924 and the 1980 Refugee Act that removed refugees as a preference category, reducing worldwide ceiling for immigration to 270,000. Many, many other significant policies are brought to light that have had an effect on immigration.

Artist Director Bill Massolia comments about the production, “In To America owes a great deal of its inspiration from my own family’s immigrant roots.” 

He was also inspired by Ronald Takaki’s award-winning book A Different Mirror where it is stated “In the making of multicultural America, the contingent’s original inhabitants were joined by people pushed from their homelands by poverty and persecution in Asia, Latin America and Europe, and pulled here by extravagant dreams. Others came here in chains from Africa, and still others fled here from countries like Afghanistan and Vietnam. These men and women may not have read John Locke, but they came to believe that ‘in the beginning all the world was America.’ They envisioned the emerging country as a place for a bold new start.”

He further states, “Marginalized and degraded as the “Other” minorities came to believe even more fiercely and fervently than did the founding fathers in the ‘self-evident truths’ that ‘all men are created equal’, entitled to the ‘unalienable rights’ of ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’. 

In To America also explores the paranoia regarding immigration held by one such founding father quoting Benjamin Franklin, "Few of their children in the country learn English... The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages ... Unless the stream of their importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious."

The play’s theme is strong in reminding us that America has been made on the backs of immigrants, boasting many great achievements and spotlighting a handful of prominent “new Americans” who have truly made a difference in our country’s progress. In the end we get a picture of hope, unity and promise.

Dorothy Milne directs while the cast in this insightful piece includes Juanita Andersen, Katie Campbell, Jennifer Cheung, Aneisa Hicks, Christopher W. Jones, Francisco Lopez, Adam Marcantoni, Sean McGill, Rasika Ranganathan, Omer Abbas Salem, Scott Shimizu, Jason VonRohn and Elizabeth Hope Williams. Each actor plays multiple characters from all over the world, transitioning very well from accent to accent, adding to the play’s genuine nature in relaying a spirit everyone can identify with.  

In To America is just the play that will prompt many to go back and research their family lineage to discover their own journey to America.

In To America is being performed at Den Theatre’s Heath Main Stage through April 23rd. Tickets are $38 and valet parking is now available. For tickets and/or more show information click here. 

I decided to review this wonderful new play by Aaron Holland partly because I loved the title and in spite of the mention in the PR materials saying that Holland’s inspiration were in part from Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

I’m so glad I did because this play about one young “everyman” or “everywoman” as the case may be,  Amari Bolkonski, (played wonderfully by Armand Fields) has so much to say to all of us about the necessity of self love and friendship in overcoming life’s sometimes crippling blows to our sense of identity.

In Bailiwick Chicago’s Princess Mary Demands Your Attention, Amari is suffering from agoraphobia and OCD in part because his mother, Countess Bolkonski, (Pam Mack) openly disparages her youngest son by comparing him unfavorably to his distant older brother who is in her eyes, “the real man” in the family.

Luckily Amari runs into a few young gay club kids who become his “new family” and his closest friends and confidantes as he struggles to get out from under his mother’s controlling, domineering, apron and on with his own life.

Nathaniel (TJ Crawford), Bastian (Omer Abbas Salem) and Christian (David Kaplinsky) do a fantastic job of bringing these funny and sympathetic characters to life. Their scenes together are really fun to watch and seem to come from a very real, natural place.

Pam Mack does a wonderful job with the role of Countess and redeems her character’s seemingly abusive treatment of her youngest son in a truly heart wrenching scene telling Amari that she is truly sorry and that he must start to love himself as he is, after she has suffered a debilitating stroke.

The character of Stacy (Rus Rainear) is Amari’s fairy godfather of sorts, a flamer who has watched over Amari since his father’s death as a child and given him a place to work in his food stop since Amari is afraid to leave his house and deal with people in general. Rus Rainear is adorable in this role and gets many laughs with just a “look” or gesture.  Stacy’s undying support along with Amari’s loyal buddies who help him dress up and get him out of his basement  Amari realizes over time and with the hallucinated appearance of his own personal “Queen Mary”  inspire him to break out and realize that his hiding and self pity are ruining his life.

I thought director Lili-Anne Brown did a fabulous job integrating music from the period and strobe lights and smoke and into the piece in a way that maximized the laughs, glamour and fantasy world of Amari and his friends while keeping Amari’s transformation grounded in a very touching way that anyone gay or straight, male or female, can identify with.

In the lobby before the show the audience was encouraged to write on an index card the thing they feel is holding them back in life.  Also there was  a “wig room” with costumes and accessories for audience members to try on “Princess Mary’s glam clothes and wigs and take a “selfie”, which really appealed to me because it made me think about applying the play’s ideas to my own life before I even entered the theater.

I highly recommend this funny yet poignant piece by Holland not because it is perfect and needs no further editing but because in its current incarnation it is so joyous and uplifting one cannot help but feel moved and entertained by it. 

Princess Mary Demands Your Attention is being performed at Victory Gardens Richard Christiansen Theater through February 21^st. For tickets and/or more information call 773-871-3000 or visit www.victorygardens.org.

*Photo - (left to right) TJ Crawford, Omer Abbas Salem, Armand Fields and David Kaplinskyin Bailiwick Chicago’s world premiere of PRINCESS MARY DEMANDS YOUR ATTENTION by Aaron Holland, directed by Artistic Director Lili-Anne Brown.  Photo by Michael Brosilow.