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TOYS: A Dark Fairy Tale
Reviewed by Paul Birchall
The Hudson Theatre
Through December 13
RECOMMENDED:
Sometimes you can just sit down in a theater and, as soon as the lights dim, you know you’re seeing a show whose origins are Eastern European.
This is certainly the case with this engrossing play by Romanian-American playwright Saviana Stanescu. It isn’t just the fact that the stage is painted stark white, or that the two performers – cool as a pair of cucumbers – bicker with each other in Slavic-accented English.
Nor is it the fact that at one point a performer pours a Hefty bag full of baby dolls onto the floor and proceeds to rip off each one’s head. Nor is it the end sequence, during which the two tear up a set of plastic garbage baggies and refashion them to resemble wedding dresses, and then use a bicycle pump to puff up a blow-up doll groom. No, you can tell this is a play with East European origins from the crisply rendered and steadfastly unabashed atmosphere of ambiguity.
Stanescu’s opus demands close attention – but it doesn’t necessarily depend on you absolutely understanding what is going on. Indeed, if you could bottle the irony seeping over the stage, you would have enough for a six-pack of the stuff.
Clara (Julia Ubrankovics), a young NYU grad student who migrated to America as an infant, interviews a refugee from a war-torn Balkan nation. The refugee, Shari (Tunde Skovran), is well known as a warrior rebel in her own country. At first, Shari seems to despise the pampered, baby-like Clara – but before long, intimations of a deep, strange relationship become evident. Shari insists that Clara is her long lost sister. Can it possibly be true? And what does it mean to be siblings from two such widely disparate universes?
Director Gabor Tompa brings a taut intellectual ferocity to the piece, and some striking emotional heft as well, though the production’s overarching tone is one of ironic detachment. Stanescu’s storytelling is intentionally disjointed. We are not always sure what’s going on – and that is the whole point. The setting is stylized, and the characters’ emotions are intense but sometimes hard to understand.
Performances are compelling, if inscrutable by design. They also evolve over time. Ubrankovics’s lovely wide-eyed turn as the pampered American girl gradually turns into something more taut and urgent, while Skovran’s fierce Shari starts out angry but then reveals unexpected vulnerabilities and kindnesses. Overall TOYS: A Dark Fairy Tale is a fascinatingly complex and not entirely comprehensible drama that actually leaves some vivid impressions for a long time after.
The Hudson Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles.: Thurs – Fri 8; Sun. 7:00 p.m.; through December 13. www.toystheplay.com or (323) 960-4443. Running time: 70 minutes with no intermission.
