Avaaz
Reviewed by Martίn Hernández
South Coast Repertory
Through May 27
RECOMMENDED
After actor-playwright Michael Shayan’s years of pestering his Iranian-Jewish immigrant mother Roya to tell her life story, she finally relented to being recorded. After a writing retreat exercise, he took his mother’s interview and his own imagination and melded them together to craft a compelling one-person show. Part stand-up comedy act, part liberating confessional, it is a heartfelt tribute to a single mother who, despite her fear and foibles, rose to meet her challenges with guts and humor.
Wafting among the audience to chit chat before the show begins, resplendent in a shimmering robe and pants, is Roya (Shayan, channeling his mother), our effervescent hostess for this celebration of Nowruz – the Persian New Year. Nowruz falls on the first day of the Spring Equinox. A tradition integral to the holiday is the Haft-Sin, an arrangement of seven items whose names begin with the letter “S” in the Persian alphabet and that are displayed as elaborately as possible. Don’t worry, Roya will explain all this and more to you as she welcomes you to her home in Westwood, or “Tehran-geles,” as it is known to Iranian emigres.
“We sing, we dance, we criticize” is her tongue-in-cheek way of explaining other Nowruz customs, the latter of which may be why she and her son Michael have a strained relationship. “Michael is a writer,” Roya says, which is “Farsi for unemployed.” He is also gay, which she accepts wholeheartedly, but she wishes he would lose weight and be more like a svelte lion than a beefy bear. With Michael ignoring her texts and phone messages, will he miss the party for the first time?
As she awaits her prodigal son, Roya regales us with humorous and harrowing tales of her life, both in Tehran and Los Angeles. The 1979 Islamic Revolution did not bode well for Roya’s Jewish parents, siblings, and herself. Her activist father was arrested for his opposition to the Khomeini regime and an ensuing encounter with a prison guard left a chilling impression on 16 -year-old Roya.
As women are now required to wear head scarves in public, she and a friend lose theirs at an underground dance club and Roya is fearful of the multiple lashes they could receive if they are caught in the street without them. Making her way home that night, however, she finds herself on a hill overlooking Tehran. She then reacts with rapture as she is bathed in the lights of the city she still loves, despite its new hardships.
Emigrating to Los Angeles in 1984, she moves in with friends of her family, finds humble work, and marries Bijan, a fellow Iranian. The marriage reminds her of the Iranian hostage crisis, declaring “I was the hostage, he was the crisis.” After the birth of Michael, into whom she pours all her love, Roya and Bijan part ways but Roya asserts that her manipulative ex “washes” Michael’s brain, creating a profound rift between mother and son.
Eschewing any manner of makeup or wigs, Shayan relies on a melodic accent, flamboyant costuming, and hilarious malapropisms to create a sympathetic Roya. But she is not all saint, and neither is Michael, with Shayan depicting a tumultuous, warts-and-all relationship of two vulnerable people avoiding anything like a middle ground. However, with their relationship explored mostly from Roya’s perspective, the audience would benefit from more of Michael’s side to better understand their complicated connection.
Designer Beowulf Boritt’s sumptuous set, with various tables festooned with the profusely fecund representations of the seven items of Haft-Sin, adds to the sense of new and abundant life the play symbolizes. With three huge frames behind the tables, projection designer Yee Eun Nam has augmented Roya’s experiences by projecting fitting images, such as pouring rain and multiple images of Shayan as Roya reflected to her in a moment of reluctant introspection.
Under Moritz von Steupnagel’s picaresque direction, Shayan shines as he nimbly jumps from the jokes to the dread and back, calibrating each move and word with precision. Shayan appears to have poured his heart into the piece and it shows. Coincidentally, the real Roya was in the audience at the performance I attended. She seemed to love it, but I imagine she has notes and I am sure she won’t “annul” him – see the play and you’ll find out why.
South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Segerstrom Stage, Costa Mesa; Tues. – Thurs., 7: 30 pm; Sat., 2:30 & 8 pm.; Sun., 2 pm. (no perf Tues. May 24); through May 27. www.scr.org. (Running time 90 minutes. with no intermission.)
