TAKWAHIMINANA

“A sensitive, caring and thoughtful tale of cross-cultural life, loss, love, identity and connection. Visually stunning but too much story and too little time keeps performances from resonating from the get-go.”

Toronto’s Soulpepper theatre has once again collaborated with artistic director Matthew Mackenzie’s Punctuate Theatre to showcase his latest play, a simple yet stunning narrative surrounding one woman’s quest to reconcile her heritage after spending her formative years a world away from her ancestral lands in Alberta. This one-act solo narrative is carried competently by lead actor Michaela Washburn, supported by a quintet of southeast Asian performers who silently complement the narrative with highly orchestrated and synchronized choreography. Though Washburn’s delivery and pace are spot, she doesn’t engage the audience soon enough and emotions are slow getting up to speed.

Hot off the heels of last season’s Soulpepper hit, “First Métis Man of Odesa”, Mackenzie penned another proud story of one’s identity and indigeneity.

Sharon (inspired by Mackenzie’s mother’s formative experiences across the globe) is a Métis woman born in India. Her father, a medical doctor, and her mother moved to Bangalore to tend to the sick in an impoverished community. Sharon doesn’t fit in and is bullied and teased by others, who deride her as a “white monkey”. Her home life is less than ideal with a depressed mother and absent father. As she acclimatizes to life in the south Asia as a teen, her father decides to move the family back to her ancestral home in Alberta while he takes up residency in a Toronto hospital. He’s absent again leaving Sharon caught between two cultures, too white to be Indian and too Indian to be white. At the start of the play, we find Sharon as an adult attending a lavish foodie dinner party hosted by her longtime paramour, an executive chef named Claude, marking the unofficial 20th anniversary of their extramarital affair. But their simmering love is complicated as her Indigenous knowledge is appropriated and fetishized. Can their relationship endure? Should it? Who are the people in her life that truly matter? Where does her heart really lie? As Mackenzie says in his program notes, “…connection to culture and land is deeply personal, tied to the experiences of an individual.” The five Indian “dancers” act as a silent chorus, an ever-present reminder of the Indian roots that Sharon cannot embodies.

Theres’s so much to tell in this fascinating story that, at 70 minutes, it feels somehow too abridged. From Sharon’s life in India seems too skimmed over and reconciliation with family too hurried. These are important themes that deserve more resolution.

Director Mike Payette does an admirable job creating duality between Sharon’s two worlds. There’s stage of the small Tank House theatre is limiting, but he’s blocked her very intentionally with the silent chorus, sometimes bobbing and weaving her through them, sometimes placing her at the opposite side of the stage. She never acknowledges her castmates but feels their presences regardless. Payette’s direction blends seamlessly with the work of choreographer Anoshinie Muhundarajah. Her Bharatanatyam style gloriously enhances Sharon’s experiences, and spiritual reflections. Prithi Castelino, Vanessa Mangar, Kajaanan Navaratnam, Swetha Pararajasingam, and Naveeni Rasiah encompass structured movements, expressions, and stories conveyed through hand gestures and facial expressions within a specific musical and rhythmic framework. Their wonderous synchronicity is a joy to behold!

Michaela Washburn as Sharon successfully conjures the images of Sharon’s past and feeling toward her paramour and ancestry, but her physicality is often stiff and robotic. For me, it’s critical for an actor to win me over in the first few minutes. The eyes are the key. Unfortunately, Marchand delivers much of her monologue to the floor, lagging my engagement in the first part of her narrative.

Dawn Marie Marchand’s set design is perfectly simple, fusing cultures together visually using images of earth, water and stars. Vibrant paisley shapes with floral designs in Indian motif overlayed with Cree/ Métis floral symbolism painted on the stage, effectively evoke dual cultures. A curtain of strings meanders along the back of the stage, flowing top to bottom like the swaying fringe of a dancer’s costume, a perfect surface to project Amelia Scott’s ethereal and cosmic video designs. André du Toit’s superb, rich, multi-coloured lighting design with original music by Noor Dean Musani and sound effects by Aaron Macri together create an inspired, expressive and uncomplicated production that is a magical feast for the senses.

Like Marchand’s set design, Jolane Houle and Bharathy Vivekanantham bring glorious Indo-Indigenous colours and styles to their costumes. From Sharon’s simple nightie to traditional Indian dhotis, sarees and kurtas, costumes, fabrics and designs are authentic and inspired.

TAKWAHIMINANA, like the bitter and sour berries for which it is named, is an enchanting tale of the complexities of identity and existentialism. The story is vital, relevant, moving and, eventually, deeply felt. There’s so much to unpack in Sharon’s life – connecting with family, sharing lies, feeling displaced, betrayed and confused – it makes me hope that future iterations of the play might expand the characters and situations. Though you may not leave the theatre fully satiated, it’s still a palate pleaser for theatre foodies everywhere.

Runs approximately 70 minutes with no intermission.

The production runs until May 11 at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts

50 Tank House Lane, Distillery Historic District, Toronto, ON M5A 3C4

For tickets call 416-866-8666 or email boxoffice@youngcentre.ca

“TAKWAHIMINANA”

Written by Mathew Mackenzie

Directed by Mike Payette

Choreography by Anoshinie Muhundarajah

Set design by Dawn Marie Marchand

Video Design by Amelia Scott

Costume designs by Jolane Houle and Bharathy Vivekanantham

Lighting designed by André du Toit