House of Many Tongues-Tarragon Theatre
I saw
"House of Many Tongues" (
by Jonathan Garfinkel, directed by
Richard Rose), this afternoon: An Israeli General (played by
Howard Jerome) has lived in his house in Jerusalem for forty years. One day, he's visited by a Palestinian writer (played by
Hrant Alianak) who claims to have lived in the house decades previously, and whose family had lived in it for generations before that. The house must be shared. The house itself is personified (by
Fiona Highet) who wants a family to live in her, to take care of her, to love her. There’s even a talking camel (
Raoul Bhanjea). The general has a 15 year old son, Alex(
Daniel Karasik) whose solution to the mid-east crisis is "The Cunnilingus Manifesto". LOL! They are joined by Suha (
Erica Mackinnon), the teenage daughter of the writer, who brings her wise-cracking dead pigeon and a zip-lock bag containing the remains of her mother. Rivka (
Niki Landau) is Alex's tutor and the first target of his manifesto. She knows the secret of his birth, something he realizes his father has been lying to him about. There are lot of people lying in this play and finding out the truth (whatever that is and to whom it belongs) is quite the exercise.
The metaphors here are pretty obvious, but the play, as a whole, isn't; there's a complexity in it that I'm still appreciating. How can I convey how good these actors are and how funny (yes, funny), and hard, and tragic this play is? I usually question the use of magic realism; often, it just detracts from an otherwise solid work or is used as a smoke screen for a bad one. In this case, the talking house, the talking camel, the bad joke pigeon are perfectly acceptable in the never-ending, no-solution-here, absurdist drama that is Israel and Palestine.
This is a play to see.
http://www.tarragontheatre.com/season/0809/houseofmanytongues/