| . | 03/24/2008
TRINITY COLLEGE (WALES) presents NEW WORLDS/KINDING SINDAW (PHILIPPINES) presents BEMBARAN
By: Joel Benjamin
Brides in Bemaran (photo from La MaMa E.T.C.)
Two companies from opposite sides of the globe presented works about overcoming oppression, combining spoken word with music and, in the case of the Philippine troupe Kinding Sindaw, dance. The New York City theater scene was enhanced by these two productions, performed by talented, semi-professional casts. "Bemaran" was one of the series of ongoing presentations of Kinding Sindaw's director/historian, Potri Ranka Manis; "New Worlds" was presented as part of Wales Week in New York City.
Trinity College's production of "New Worlds" by Ian Rowlands tells the story of two young lovers who are separated by the unyielding economic traumas caused by the mid-Nineteenth Century upheavals in Wales brought on by English oppression. As problems mount, the father of one family makes the decision to take his entire extended family from their little hamlet of Cilcennin in western Wales to Ohio, USA where fellow Welshman have immigrated. His daughter's intended, decides to leave his drunken, abusive father to find work in the newly industrial southern region of Wales thus separating them forever. The play is told cleverly in long flashbacks. The daughter's boyfriend, never having lost his love for his girl, travels to America decades later after she has died, having received her private diary. The lover, now aged, meets his beloved's son and reads the diary entries which form the play.
The play is staged with utmost simplicity using perfect, moody lighting, large boxes and lengths of rope to portray early scenes in Cilcennin and the heartbreaking journey to America aboard a leaky ship. The cast moves these scenic elements to eloquently create different places. A family member dies en route during a storm, yet they continue on their journey aboard crude carts and a handhewn raft until they could go no further.
The most powerful element of the performance were the a capella Welsh songs. When words would not suffice the songs expressed all moods from happy to sad and were sung in beautiful close harmony that actually seemed to resonate the walls of the little Producers Club II theater.
This little-told story of the Welsh in America was in turns clever, heartwarming, inventive and moving.
In a far more exotic production, "Bembaran" told the convoluted mythical tale of ancient kingdoms, abductions, betrayals, mistaken identities all bracketed by scenes of the United States Military's oppression of native Filipinos in the early Twentieth Century. Potri Ranka Manis who has been a regular contributor at LaMama managed to tell her story using a large cast of mostly professional actor/singer/dancers all accompanied by vivid live performances of Philippine music. The many complicated percussion rhythms, the bell-like tones of the xylphone-like instruments and the flutey woodwinds provided constant support for the complicated story which told of a princess who's wedding is sabotaged by magic spells. The authentic costumes, colorful and extravagant not only were historically accurate, but theatrically brilliant, helping to identify which character was which. Bamboo forests moved about the stage; huge battles between rival sects made for eye-catching scenes; identities were lost or changed; and all ended happily...but not really. The U.S. military is portrayed as sadistic, intent on destroying the natives and their culture, so that the many-faceted arts of the Philippines represented by "Bembaran" are even more wonderful as they have survived and been carefully tended to by artists like Ms. Manis.
It's a tribute to the thriving New York performing arts scene that two works like "New Worlds" and "Bembaran" could be offered, telling their different but intensely human stories of survival against all odds.
KINDING SINDAW in "Bembaran" TRINITY COLLEGE in "New Worlds"
The Annex at LaMama The Producers Club II
7A East 4th St. 616 Ninth Ave.
New York, NY 10003 New York, NY 10036
December 6 - 23, 2007 February 26 & 27, 2008
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