Theatre Review: SANCTUARY CITY at NYTW
There arrives an unlucky time in a theatergoer’s attendance when a showing is halted mid-dialogue due to technical difficulties. Such occurred 15 minutes into a Saturday matinee of Martyna Majok’s Sanctuary City when a lighting blink happened on its own accord and mismatched the rhythms.
I bring this up not to challenge its competence — a keen audience is cognizant difficulties happen regardless of labor put in. But rather, I emphasize the integral lighting as the punctuation that binds and electrifies the main duo played by Jasai Chase-Owens as B and Sharlene Cruz as G, respectively, playing undocumented youths prodding at the systemic barriers in an early post-9/11 era. Directed by Rebecca Frecknall, the physical balletic movements between Chase-Owens and Cruz on a sparse elevated square on the stage is dizzying but never disorienting, snapping together the chemistry with neither excess acceleration nor inertia. It owes to the choreography waltzing through non-linear time directed by Rebecca Frecknall, and the lighting flashes (Isabella Byrd sets up the lighting design) seamlessly with transitions.
Snappy light cues transform and transport the pair into the middle of ongoing conversations or ruminations, both walking and turning on cue and shifting into various conversational poses. Every back-and-forth swap to a conversation, G and B know where they left off and what questions they’re answering or arguing. They exchange barbs, solace, stories, and fabricated answers that comprise their hypothetical marriage citizen test — a rehearsal which could grant B his way to staying legally in the country. Majok’s script calls for malleability of background and identity in casting: “The countries of origin can suit the actors chosen.”
Only their G and B’s bodies occupy the sparse platform. Glance at the program, you’ll know that a third player will come into the picture. We’re immersed in the rage and sorrow of their circumstances and stakes as undocumented teens without their personhood getting bogged by them — hardships are not cheap drama. The last 20 minutes throw in a third player, Henry as played by Austin Smith. The finale remains compelling — tearjerking and meditative — but settles for stillness and elongated delivery that manages to be disorienting by dropping the snap-and-cackle that existed between the two friends.
Sanctuary City is playing until October 17 at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. There is also streaming available October 25 through November 21, 2021.
