{"id":2598,"date":"2011-08-03T19:30:56","date_gmt":"2011-08-04T02:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/?p=2598"},"modified":"2011-08-29T14:37:35","modified_gmt":"2011-08-29T21:37:35","slug":"1001","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/2011\/08\/1001\/","title":{"rendered":"1001"},"content":{"rendered":"

Play by Jason Grote
\nDirected by Megan Sandberg-Zakian<\/p>\n

Company One<\/a>
\nAt Boston Center for the Arts
\nBoston, MA<\/p>\n

With Lauren Eicher (Scheherazade\/Dahna), Ben Gracia (The One-Eyed Arab\/Juml’s Master\/Mostafa\/A Slave\/Sinbad\/Voice of Alan Dershowitz\/The Djinn), Nael Nacer (Shahriyar\/Alan), Ruby Rose Fox (The Virgin Bride\/ Dunyazade\/ The Princess Maridah\/ Juml\/Kuchuk Hanem\/Lubna), Lonnie McAdoo (Jorge Luis Borges\/The EmirGhassan\/The Horrible Monster\/Osama Bin Laden\/Wazir), Hampton Fluker (Yahya Al-Husayni\/Asser\/Gustave Flaubert\/The Orthodox Jewish Student\/Voice of Moderator\/A Eunuch)<\/div>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"One<\/a><\/p>\n

An experimental blend of tales from The Thousand and One Nights<\/em> and a contemporary, cross-culturally charged, love story.<\/strong><\/div>\n

The first half of this fanciful improvisation dwells on stories from The Arabian Nights<\/em> (alternately, The Thousand and One Nights<\/em> – hence the title of this play). One might easily have thought, at that point, that this was a comedic interpretation of several of its stories, but for the odd verbal stumblings of Shahriyer (Nael Nacer) alluding to contemporary subjects.<\/p>\n

The premise of The Thousand and One Nights<\/em>: the king of Persia, Shahriyar, finds out that his new bride has betrayed him and executes her. He then begins to marry a sequence of virgins and, irreparably bitter about the initial betrayal, after one night of marriage, executes each of the new brides. The king’s vizier finally can find no more virgins. His own daughter, Scheherazade, offers herself. Reluctantly, the vizier agrees and Scheherazade marries the king. Astutely, on the first night of her marriage, she begins to tell the king a story but does not end it. Possessed by the unconcluded narrative, he keeps her alive until the succeeding night, on which she begins a new story that she also does not end, and so on, for one thousand and one nights, at least.<\/strong><\/div>\n

As it turns out, the second half realizes the significance of those allusive stumblings. Its setting is dominantly contemporary and focuses on the love story of a young Palestinian woman, Dachna (Lauren Eicher), and a young, Jewish-American man, Alan (Nael Nacer), played out in New York. The attempt is bold and quite interesting, though the writing brings in so many references (including appearances by Gustave Flaubert, Jorge Juis Borges and Alan Dershowitz) that the rendering gets a bit dissipated. Ultimately, the integration of The Arabian Nights<\/em> tales and the contemporary love story is not done clearly enough to have as much of an impact is it might.<\/p>\n

\"One<\/a><\/p>\n

The acting is generally good – Lauren Eichler is a powerful and demonstrative Scheherazade and Dachna, and Nael Nacer is an appropriately buffoonish though somewhat stilted Shahriyer, as well as a sweet and compelling Alan. Nacer played an astoundingly charming Ravelli (the Chico character) in the Lyric Stage production of Animal Crackers<\/em> this spring and it was a delight to see him again.<\/p>\n

This interestingly experimental narrative attempts to bring, through its classic allusion, a new reflection on the current Middle East, a political and cultural arena that could certainly use some creative input. While retaining the experimental quality and exercised with a bit more restraint, such an endeavor could have considerable effect.<\/p>\n

Tales from the Thousand and One Nights (Penguin Classics)<\/a>\"\"<\/strong><\/div>\n

– BADMan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Play by Jason Grote Directed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian Company One At Boston Center for the Arts Boston, MA With Lauren Eicher (Scheherazade\/Dahna), Ben Gracia (The One-Eyed Arab\/Juml’s Master\/Mostafa\/A Slave\/Sinbad\/Voice of Alan Dershowitz\/The Djinn), Nael Nacer (Shahriyar\/Alan), Ruby Rose Fox (The Virgin Bride\/ Dunyazade\/ The Princess Maridah\/ Juml\/Kuchuk Hanem\/Lubna), Lonnie McAdoo (Jorge Luis Borges\/The EmirGhassan\/The Horrible […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-plays","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2598"}],"version-history":[{"count":92,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2684,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2598\/revisions\/2684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}