This is an ambitious and important piece of musical theater. It deals with complex issues such as how we view "others" and embeds these issues into ancient Persia and modern day Jewish/Palestinian relations, asking us to examine our own uses of narrative. It does this without heavy handed politics.
The production values are across the board excellent and the cast is first rate. The duet, 'Tell Me a Story', should become an American Theater Classic. With a hauntingly beautiful melody combined with intermittent dialog and an ensemble reminiscent of a Greek Chorus, it develops the relationship between. Alan and Dahna in a believable and honest way.
In these times, seeing theater that offers up the possibility of a new way to change our individual and collective human stories, is vitally important and necessary.
2
I saw 1000 Nights and One Day. It is one of the most surprising, genuinely innovative pieces of theatre I have encountered. As it begins, you think you are going to watch a postmodern deconstruction of Sheherezade, with the pasha as a befuddled Jewish millennial, and the eponymous heroine as a spunky QUeen Hester. But hold on to your seats. Suddenly you’re in modern-day Manhattan and ancient Persia simultaneously; the stories of the clash of Western and Middle Eastern civilization seem to be inevitably bound up with your own; you find yourself trapped in a matrix of inescapable narratives which permit you to feel that you are captain of your own ship, but which ultimately determine your course with merciless certitude. The real is indistinguishable from fiction, and the conflicting narratives permeate each other like the diaphanous curtains that tenuously separate the areas of the stage. Music is used in astonishingly inventive ways to weave the various threads that come together to create the story of the couple, as they strive to free themselves from the unforgiving web.
Take it from me, there are important things going on here. See it.
3