Arasha, E.M. Davis, and Rachna Khatau (Photo by Brian Hashimoto)
Reviewed by Elle Sinio
East West Players and Hypokrit Live Arts
Closed
Rachna Khatau, E.M. Davis, and Arasha (Photo by Brian Hashimoto)
Since 1965, East West Players has been the largest and longest running Asian American theater in the country. Even with about 61 seasons in, its productions are still picking fights that are worth having.
Its new season opened with the Southern California premiere of Jaclyn Backhaus’s Wives, a co-production with New York’s Hypokrit Live Arts. It played through Nov. 1 at the David Henry Hwang Theater in Little Tokyo.
The premise is simple yet memorable: take history’s most known and overrated “great men” and hand the microphone to the women standing beside them.
Walk in the theater before the show, and the scene is already set. Blu Cantrell’s “Hit ‘Em Up Style” and traditional yet modern takes on Indian music play over the speakers while purples and pinks wash the backdrop of the set, where fabrics hang loose over the stage. This perspective tells us abstractly whose story this is telling before a single actor steps out.
Four actors go through four different centuries. In 16th-century France, Queen Catherine de Medici and her husband’s mistress Diane circle each other over a castle and a dead man. In 1960s Idaho, Ernest Hemingway’s three ex-wives and his widow turn his funeral into a brutal autopsy on his love life. In 1920s British India, an Indian queen and the “witch” hired to cure her husband’s health discover they’re both married to the same man. And at a present day college, a student in a witch club drops the names of her heroes and desires into a cauldron and summons the grandparents she never met.
No matter what century it is, the main theme is how women are portrayed in history to compete against each other. But in this powerful retelling, these wives choose solidarity instead.
Backhaus writes the past in Gen Z slang, which creates a comedic tone but also connection with a younger audience. Nobody here talks like the century they’re in and it works perfectly.
Actors Rachna Khatau (Wife 1), E.M. Davis (Wife 2), Arasha (Wife 3) and Parvesh Cheena (Man) do the heavy lifting, playing roughly four roles each. Khatau is the wild card; her characters are unpredictable yet entertaining to watch. Arasha’s line delivery makes her surprising and funny to watch. Davis’ performance swings between cartoonish and sincere, and Cheena, the lone man in the cast, is clearly having the most fun.
The costume and lighting work is gorgeous, with saturated reds and greens against the pink and purple glow that works perfectly with the setting of the show. The small house with a low close stage and a mezzanine makes the whole production feel more intimate. The casting becomes its own message, handing French queens and Idaho ex-wives to a primarily South Asian cast, proving that brilliant storytelling transcends both historical boundaries and traditional casting.
Four centuries. Four actors. One hour and thirty minutes, no intermission. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, maybe even argue about it in the car on the way home.
But that’s the point.
David Henry Hwang Theater, 120 Judge John Aiso St, Los Angeles; Closed.
