The Surgeon and Her Daughters

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Say this for playwright Chris Gabo: he has an excellent ear for the way people speak and is adept at creating real people with a couple of strokes. What he still has to learn is how to build a plot and make the theme integral to it. The Surgeon and Her Daughters being produced by Colt Coeur at Theatre 154 has so many holes, it is amazing no one in the production noticed it before. Director Adrienne Campbell-Holt has done a fine job of working with the actors but she should have spent more time on shaping the play. Don’t blame the fine cast who had no control over their scenes or dialogue.

According to the author’s note, he wrote the play to acquaint theatergoers with the “forgotten war” in Sudan. Unfortunately, as there is no backstory for the leading character the Sudanese Mohammed-Ahmed, we learn nothing about this war or how it has affected him. Eventually we learn that he was a surgeon there and lost his wife and daughter. We assume that he was not able to become qualified as a doctor in New York as he has been working as a sign holder for a midtown Irish bar. However, the circumstances of the deaths of his wife and daughter are never explained nor why and how he came to New York (one assumes he was seeking asylum but this is never stated either.) Not surprisingly, no one he meets in New York believes he has been a surgeon as he never tells his life story.

The plot is emaciated in its present form and can be recounted in four sentences though the play itself takes two hours: Mariana, a retired military officer, meets Mohammed-Ahmed in a midtown bar where he thinks he is having a heart attack. They click romantically immediately and spend a blissful night together, each saving the other from deep depression. When she is sent back to active duty (we never do find out why after 20 years of service and retired six months she is called back) and goes missing in action, he arrives to help her college age daughters, pragmatic Cecilia (holding down a job) and embittered Ashley (a dancer in her senior year at Juilliard), cope with their mutual grief. However, Ashley resents his intrusion while his presence after he moves in with them helps Cecilia greatly. That’s it with a few minor digressions along the way which fill out the plot.

The other characters seem extraneous although at least one is wrapped up in the plot by the end. Both Mohammed-Ahmed and Isaiah work for Mr. O’Halleron (whose real name is Gomez) drumming up trade for his Irish named bar. O’Halleron’s presence seems to be only to show how badly immigrants to New York are treated, but it turns out Isaiah is in a wheelchair due to an accident washing windows when he was trying to pay his way as a dance student at Juilliard. Coincidentally, when Ashley gets drunk and dances on the street before the U.S. Armed Forces Recruiting Station who she blames for her mother’s death, she is seen by Isaiah and given advice by him about what a dancer must give her audience no matter what she is feeling. (Strangely, Isaiah never tells her that he was also a dance student at Juilliard even though she reveals her status.)

The cast is excellent at creating their roles though all of the scenes play like real time in cinéma vérité, telegraphing only one piece of information in each of the very long encounters. As the hero Mohammed-Ahmed, the sympathetic Brian D. Coats is both sensitive and wise. Although she does not have a great deal of stage time before she disappears in her army maneuvers, Liza Fernandez’s Mariana is established as vivacious and animated. Yadira Guevara as her biological daughter Cecilia and Kana Seiki as her adopted daughter Ashley are quite believable as sisters who do not agree on most things. Eden Marryshow as the paraplegic former dancer needs a story of his own as his back story is more interesting than the main plot. Johnny Sánchez quickly establishes a disagreeable and sour bar owner who has many problems of his own.

Tatiana Kahvegian’s elaborate set design which makes use of a revolving unit set takes a bit too long to change for the many locales and suggests that this is really a screenplay or teleplay, the author’s forte. The casual contemporary wear by Sarita P. Fellows is distinguished for its realism. Reza Behjat’s lighting design makes use of dark backgrounds and bright foregrounds. Thomas Jenkeleit’s prop design may just be the most successful of all.

Chris Gabo’s The Surgeon and Her Daughters has an interesting story to tell but has not found the best way to tell it as of yet. Even the title is problematic as it is not until very late in the play it becomes clear who the surgeon is as Mariana claims she was a medic while in the army and Mohammed-Ahmed does not confirm that he was a surgeon in Sudan until the last lines of the play. The production is first-rate but takes too long telling its simple story.

The Surgeon and Her Daughters (through December 20, 2025)

Theatre 154, 154 Christopher Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.coltcoeur.org/surgeon

Running time: two hours including one intermission