Paradise

Reviewed by Stephen Fife
JuVee Productions, American Oasis
Extended through March 31 

There is a great deal to like about Paradise, the new play by Laura Maria Censabella now receiving its West Coast premiere at the Odyssey Theatre. It starts with the graceful and luminous performance of Medalion Rahimi in the lead role of Yasmeen, a Yemeni-American senior at a low-rated public high school in the South Bronx, who discovers her passion and identity through the mentorship of the school’s new science teacher.

Ms. Censabella does an admirable job in creating this character. Yasmeen is an intelligent “good” girl, torn between the traditional values of her family and religion and the impulses of a budding scientist with ambitions for an Ivy League education and a career as a researcher. Who among us would not applaud this young woman’s self-discovery as she is carried away by her passion for scientific inquiry? The fact that she is a Muslim woman who has become keenly aware of the constraints placed upon her by culture and kin only increases her appeal.

Yet there are moments when even Ms. Rahimi’s expertise cannot conceal the calculation behind her character’s creation. It’s not enough that Yasmeen is bright and that her curiosity has been awakened. Suddenly she is reading book-length scientific treatises in one night, grasping complex concepts without any problem, and singing long passages from the Koran like an angel. At these moments she seems less like a genuine young Muslim woman and more like an idealized dramatic device that will subtly appeal to liberal sensibilities.

These issues are even more problematic with the play’s other character, Dr. Guy Royston, her teacher. Formerly in charge of Columbia University’s neuroscience research lab, he has disgraced himself, lost his reputation and fallen as far down the academic food chain as a scientist can fall and still have a job. The veteran Los Angeles actor Jeff Marlow does everything he can to bring this character alive, but he is saddled with a thankless task. The character’s backstory just doesn’t track. We are told that he was at the top of his profession, having survived a “Darwinian” battle to get there, but the way he messed up is so terrible, so unforgivable and so immature that it undercuts any respect we can have for him. The playwright wants us to root for his redemption, but the means by which he hopes to achieve this are simply not credible.

Ms. Censabella has done a commendable job of researching the science and crafting intelligent dialogue about it. We are told that Mr. Royston has written a book called What’s Love Got to Do With It? — which has nothing to do with Tina Turner (then why use that title?) but instead is a scientific exploration of the biological roots behind romantic love. Yet it is very difficult to imagine this man ever having written such a book. Royston is a self-avowed atheist who grew up as an outcast in a southern Christian community. We learn that he has two children by an ex-wife named Evangeline and was in love with a fellow researcher named Kim who left him for another colleague. But the character portrayed by Mr. Marlow does not seem to have the poetry, imagination or inclination to have written such a book. If he had been as in love with Kim as he suggests, then wouldn’t he be haunted by her loss? Wouldn’t he reveal the depth of his disappointment — not just as a brilliant scientist but as a man who’s lost everything for love?  But we hear about Kim only in passing, and we hear nothing at all about Evangeline, because to do so would distract from Yasmeen’s choosing what to do with her future. While this may be understandable in dramatic terms, it subverts the character’s credibility and relegates him to being another device by the writer.

The setting of the play — “the science lab of a large inner-city Bronx high school” — also is not convincing. I have taught writing workshops in just such school, where the atmosphere tends towards the noisy and chaotic. We see some of that in the early scenes, with students making fun of the nerdy science guy and smashing beakers in his lab. But suddenly this behavior disappears, replaced by a pin-drop silence. How wonderful if that were true!  But as an audience member, I didn’t buy it — something which director Vicangelo Bulluck must be held responsible for. In general, his production felt too isolated and clean.

Finally, anyone familiar with the 1980 Willy Russell play (and 1983 movie) Educating Rita cannot help but see some worrisome parallels here. If you replace the 27-year-old British hairstylist with a 17-year-old Muslim-American girl, you basically get Paradise. It’s the same story of a young woman finding herself while the burned-out man finds a different kind of redemption. Anyone else have a problem with that?

Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Ave., Fairfax; Thurs., 3/28, 8 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; extended through Mar. 31. (323) 960-7724 or www.Plays411/Paradise. Running time: two hours with one intermission.