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| Clockwise Top to Bottom: Mueen Jahan, Cameron Gregg, Kathleen Gray, Mary Allwright, Photos Dennis Stover |
by Joe Straw
“She was no longer examining life, but being examined by it; she had become a real person.”
― A Passage to India
Dictionary.com defines Ganesh as “the Hindu god of prophecy, represented as having an elephant’s head.” Also spelled Ganesha. Ganesha is the remover of obstacles.
Campus Cabaret presents A Perfect Ganesh by Terrence McNally and directed by David W. Callander now playing at The Pico.
Finding a perfect Ganesh, the elephant looking creature with four arms, to give away as a gift, one comes to the realization that perfection comes in a limited form or simply doesn’t exist.
It’s difficult to comprehend all that one sees in one viewing, where the characters are, what they are feeling, and how they move on in life. The first impression, always a good one, is that the play has a marvelous cast moving in a way that is satisfying, and ambivalent enough that leaves one thinking long after one has left the theatre.
The play starts with an India dance. Svetlana Tulasi (Dancer #1), an Indian Kathak dancer (Northern India) that introduces the audience with a story, possibly a story about travel and the imperfect ways getting to the final destination. And, for every turn in the dance there is a return. Symbolically the dance guides the audience into full immersion of the experience that is India.
Margaret (Mary Allwright) and Katharine (Kathleen Gray) are the best of friends from Connecticut who are to embark on a journey to India. Margaret is cantankerous and Kathleen is wide-eyed with optimism and opened to whatever may come. They have decided to leave their husbands at home, forego the annual trip to the Caribbean, and embark on an eye-opening journey to a place they have never been.
Their lives and their friendship will never be the same.
Margaret is a rules follower. She believes that things should only go her way and behaves in the manner that white colonialism still rules.
And that happens from the moment she arrives at the terminal until the check-in with the attendant (Cameron Gregg). The attendant looks at his computer and has discovered that both women are not schedule to depart on this particular flight.
The beginning of this trip foreshadows the many obstacles they are to overcome.
The first obstacle overcome, with the help of Ganesha (Mueen Jahan), gets our travelers bumped up to first class. Ganesh mysteriously appears to remove obstacles in the lives of the travelers Margaret and Katharine. He also appears in various forms to help the two women in their journey, through to their final quest to see the Taj Mahal.
But, immersed in the mystical land, the two women find themselves answering questions about their own lives. Both women are fighting demons of lost sons. Katharine’s son Walter (Judd Yort) was the victim of gay bashing and she has vowed to come to India to kiss a leper as a way of dealing with the loss of her son. Margaret holds her son, a victim of a car accident, close to her chest along with the lump she has just discovered. They come to India to receive more than they can offer.
Campus Cabaret has cast a very strong ensemble and, there’s no mistaken, A Perfect Ganesh works under the helm of David W. Callander, the director, who I observed, was still taking copious notes during the first act. The scenes at night are layered in darkness. The characters with, AIDs, the lepers, the lump in the breast scene, and the gay son after his brutalization all happen at night suggesting a deep intimacy. The moments are meticulous and the play is fluid. Callander does a wonderful job.
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| Svetlana Tulasi, Pavia Sidhu |
Mary Allwright’s character grows on you, finding out what this woman is all about, her temporary mood of repugnance, is part of the joy of loving the character. Her performance is terrific.
Delio Eswar has multiple roles and is fantastic in each. His jocular expressions place us in India. Did I see a head wobble?
Kathleen Gray delights as Katharine. There seems to be more to find in the kiss or non-kiss of the leper, why she has come so far with one intention in mind only to second guess her commitment? Her choice is very interesting.
Cameron Gregg does yeomen’s work in a variety of character and excels in each character.
Mueen Jahan plays Ganesh. His work is excellent not only in this character but the other characters he portrays, including a Japanese woman. Ganesh seems to inhabit other beings to solve a problem and he does that throughout.
Svetlana Tulasi is also delightful in the many character she portrays including Dancer #1.
Judd Yort is Walter, a sympathetic character that enters covered in blood and bruises. Walter is imagined and his imagined self sees a lot of fault with his mother mostly accepting who he was. Yort’s performance is nuanced and exciting.
Pavia Sidhu is Dancer #2. She did not dance this night.
Scenic Design by David Goldstein is minimalistic, mostly symbolic, and keeps us in the moment throughout.
Costume Design by Michael Mullen is superior. There were a number of costumes and many changes backstage for all to come in as the same character or different characters. Hair/Wig/Makeup/Mask Design by Byron Baptista was also superior.
One rarely hears, or pays attention to the sound elements created in smaller theatre but David B. Marling’s sound design was fantastic, meticulously designed, and added another flavor to the action on stage. Kamini Natarajan wrote the Original Score to the play.
Terrence McNally’s work can be left open to interpretation. First produced in 1993 the work is grand with multiple relationships to be discovered and uncovered. Katharine is the explorer, the one who wants go out and find new and exciting things both in the living and, through her imagination, the dead. Margaret is introspective but deals with life in the present, exploring herself, her body and people around her. People are focused on their own lives with eyes half shut; they don’t see the entirety of life around them.
Other members of the crew are as follow:
Brandon Barush – Lighting Design
Kassy Menke – Production State Manager
Racquel Lehrman – Theatre Planers Marketing
Philip Sokoloff – Theatrical Publicist
Anne Borrell – Graphic Design for Print and Web
Run! Run! And take someone who has a desire to go to India, or someone who has already been.
The Pico
10508 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90064
(Formerly the Pico Playhouse)
Reservations: http://onstage411.com/ganesh