Theatre in Review: Travels (Ars Nova)

	El Beh. Photo: Ben Arons

James Harrison Monaco may be the most helpful playwright in town. His new piece, Travels, is billed as "a sonic narrative collection," a term that could mean so many things, some of them distinctly unappealing. For a moment, I worried that we were in for another bout of headset theatre, a format for which I have little love. Then Monaco entered and said, "I think of this project as both a collection of short stories and as an electronic music set." Ah, clarity at last. And, indeed, he is as good as his word: Travels is a collection of mostly interlinked short pieces -- some spoken, some sung in a kind of jazzy recitative -- based on people he has met on his travels. In their casual, unassuming way, these tales pack an encyclopedia's worth of insights about the way we live now.

In addition to focusing on various locations, Monaco's interests range far and wide. A couple of stories deal with "the cabaret visa," a bizarre arrangement that allows non-European women to work in Switzerland (specifically as strippers!) for a limited time while forestalling any possibility of citizenship. This oddly specific rule, which was shut down in 2016, reverberates unexpectedly in the life of Thomas, a middle-aged Swiss landscaper who, having been dumped by his longtime lover, falls for Leopoldo, a young man of Swiss and Dominican ancestry. (The father was a Swiss tourist in the Caribbean; the parent Leopoldo never knew accidentally gifted him with citizenship in one of the world's most restrictive countries.) Several stories focus on R, an Iranian IT specialist and journalist who runs afoul of the regime in Tehran, spending time in lockup before ending up in New York -- where his life, in many ways better, nevertheless retains certain prison-like conditions. (Among other things, he must return to his shelter for asylum-seekers at 10 each evening; each day at 7am, he is put on the street.) Other narrative threads detail Monaco's encounter with an Egyptian limo driver in Los Angeles and his long night in a Mexican city with a pair of local female schoolteachers, a lively truth-telling session, fueled by gallons of Mezcal, unfolding atop a statue overlooking the city.

Each piece is backed with insights that linger in one's mind. The cabaret visa, we learn, is connected to the collapse of the sugar industry in the Dominican Republic following the introduction of high-fructose corn syrup into the American diet. Struggling to survive, the DR and other countries are reinvented as "islands of pleasure" designed to lure tourists looking for relaxation and sex. Thus, decisions made by big corporations subject millions to the law of unintended consequences. R recounts how, bored with incarceration, he began writing letters for his fellow prisoners who paid him back by requesting books from their families. During a period in solitary confinement, R's only contact is with a guard who also supplies him with reading material. Because R is blindfolded, he cannot identify the man; returned to the general population, he scans the prison staff, looking vainly for his secret benefactor. (Chillingly, he adds, his interrogations when in solitary mostly involve filling out forms because "they don't want you to even have the pleasure of human interaction." It's an Orwellian detail that sums up the cruelty of theocratic regimes.) That night out in Mexico features a discussion of "narcocorridos," pop songs about the victims of drug dealers, climaxing with the revelation that, ostensibly choosing a safe spot to visit, Monaco has ended up in "the deadliest state in all of Mexico."

Each piece is sufficiently captivating on its own that you may only realize later how lightly Travels touches on so many important, world-shaping issues, among them capitalism, globalism, authoritarianism, immigration, sex trafficking, and organized crime. It's a remarkably canny tour of the world we have inherited, focusing on real-life characters who work to build fruitful lives even with the odds stacked against them. Monaco has a gift for evoking their essential humanity, their effervescent spirits. Each of them is worth getting to know; collectively, they tell us something important about this moment in history.

The stories are told by Monaco and a trio of performers: El Beh, Ashley De La Rosa, and Mehry Eslaminia, accomplished singers/actors all, with an invaluable musical assist from the instrumentalist John Murchison. (When not in the spotlight, the cast members take on other tasks, for example operating the drum machine located upstage.) The set design, by Diggle, provides a solid layout for the action to unfold, accompanied by images -- of roses pulsing to the beat, snapshots of Turkey, and live overhead views of cast members operating audio gear -- by Stefania Bulbarella. (She also provides surtitles for sequences not performed in English.) Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew's lighting works well with the projections while also reacting sensitively to the emotional tone of each story. As a bonus, she creates chases using the color-changing LED tubes on the theatre's walls. These elements combine with Nick Kourtides' sound design to create a kind of chill lounge vibe that is well-suited to the material. Sarita Fellows dresses the cast attractively. The director, Andrew Scoville, clearly has a good eye for both casting actors and assembling creative teams.

With its hard-to-define format and relatively unknown writer and cast, Travels could easily get lost in a tumultuous theatrical April packed with shiny, starry vehicles. Don't overlook it; Monaco and company take you on a pleasure-filled excursion that will give you plenty to think about. --David Barbour