The fusion of Silk Road Rising’s advocacy for Asian stories and Remy Bumppo’s text-centric performance practices complements the cultural exchange Gupta explores.
Read More"This new version transports Dickens' narrative with a specificity and theatricality that is truly exciting-and yet 90% of the dialogue comes directly from the novel," comments Remy Bumppo Producing Artistic Director Nick Sandys.
Read MoreTrust Silk Road Rising to make its very first holiday show – Christmas at Christine’s -- not only multi-cultural but free of schmaltz and glitter too.
Read MoreJourney from California to Chicago to the Philippines to a Catholic-Jewish household, as Christine sings her way through the holiday songbook and a lifetime of yuletide memories.
Read More[Singer and actor Christine Bunuan] invites audiences into her world and shares a lifetime of touching holiday memories, from stories about seeing her husband perform in "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" to a time when she had to celebrate Christmas in Florida while on tour.
Read MoreTrue to holiday cabaret tradition, Chicago actor and singer Christine Bunuan fills her solo-show stocking with songs ranging from naughty to nice, sardonic to sentimental. But what Bunuan also offers in Christmas at Christine's, the first holiday show at Silk Road Rising, is her perspective as a child of Filipino immigrants.
Read MoreThis sweet, lighthearted holiday cabaret, written and performed by Christine Bunuan, weaves together holiday songs, some familiar, some not, with Bunuan’s recollections of Christmases past. Bunuan has a lovely voice and a winning onstage rapport with her laconic accompanist, Ryan Brewster, and her song selection, though mild, is diverting (a Jewish parody of “Santa Baby,” called “Moishe Baby,” is one the high points) . But it’s her deceptively simple stories about life in theater or visiting her extended family in the Philippines that make this show a cut above your average holiday revue. It helps that Bunuan has a very likable, relaxed stage presence and a born raconteur’s ability to make even the most mundane tale riveting.
Read MoreTea Silk Road Theatre Project, at the Loop Theater. In Japanese society, drinking tea is not only a pastime but a religion and an emblem of nationalist pride. It serves a no less mythic purpose in Asian-American playwright Velina Hasu Houston's Tea, set in the late 60s in a backwater Kansas military settlement that features "wide-open plains and narrow minds." Here four Japanese war brides--stripped of their native comforts and customs--host a tea ceremony in remembrance of a fifth whose suicide has sent ripples through a divided community.
Houston's attempt to distill the experiences of thousands of postwar immigrants into five complementary characters initially suggests a Japanese version of The Joy Luck Club. But her efforts to give them life are palpable, and she takes pains to consider the racial and sexual politics of the era without flaunting its social consciousness. Director Lynn Ann Bernatowicz emphasizes the cultural rifts with a staging that draws heavily on the Noh tradition, employing stylized movement as a bridge between scenes grounded in grim everyday rituals. Houston tries to put her characters' struggles in context with two perfunctory scenes in which they envision themselves as their husbands and children, but the women's stories are gripping enough: multifaceted portrayals by Roxanne Lee and Erika Winters anchor the talented ensemble. The theme of cultural extinction haunts Tea: Houston's women drink to both love and loss, sipping cups of warm tea to cut a Zen path between a troubling past and an unpromising future.
Read MoreThe poet and musician Ziryab was one of the luminaries of southern Spain’s medieval Islamic period, particularly when it came to playing the lutelike oud. In this solo show from Silk Road Rising, writer-performer Ronnie Malley argues that the flowering of Ziryab’s art came about in part due to the confluence of cultures—Islamic, Christian, and Jewish—he encountered in ninth-century Andalusia. Malley, the child of Palestinian immigrants, links that earlier example of multiculturalism to his own upbringing on the city’s southwest side. The show’s first-person accounts are stirring and Malley is a skillful musician; in addition to singing and strumming the oud, he plays percussion and the electric guitar.
Read MoreMalley leavens a potentially death-riddled mystery with an insouciant approach to anecdotes that anchors his performance in the earth of Chicago’s standup roots.
Read MoreMalley’s performances on the oud and its descendants, the lute and the guitar, certainly drive home his point about music’s universal reach.
Read MoreMalley richly regales us with songs that are both time trips and travelogues. His avocation is as religious as artistic. It links him in tolerance to the Abrahamic god of three religions and countless cultures. Malley connects us too. The result is wonderful.
Read MorePresented here in a smart collaboration between Silk Road Rising and About Face Theatre, Brahman/i hinges on a fiery, magnetic central performance by Fawzia Mirza, who pins down just the right kind of dangerous charisma needed to spin this tale...
Read MoreThe Match is a contemporary retelling of the Oedipus story told through solitude, revolution, and soccer.
Moussa is a disillusioned ex-trade unionist, returning from prison. His son Ali spends all of his time on the Internet. A battle of words, and silence, ensues while the national soccer team plays a historic match.
Read MoreDickens’ beloved tale of aspiration, intrigue, and romance is thrillingly transplanted to a colonized India by award-winning British Bengali playwright Tanika Gupta. When Indian orphan Pip receives a mysterious inheritance, he must choose between his humble rural life and the city life of an English “gentleman.” In a vibrant clash of cultures, classes, and conscience, Gupta's brilliant adaptation expands Dickens' enduring question: Is it worth losing who you are for who you might become?
Read MoreInspired by the Ground Zero Mosque controversy in New York City, Mosque Alert tells the story of three fictional families living in Naperville, Illinois, whose lives are interrupted by a proposed Islamic Center on the site of a beloved local landmark. Mosque Alert explores the intersections of zoning and Islamophobia with humor, family drama, and refreshingly blunt honesty.
Read MoreThis documentary play by playwright Maxi Obexer addresses the plight of the "illegal helpers" who seek to provide aid and shelter to migrants—even though it is against the law. A powerful insight into a contemporary tragedy that threatens to engulf Western Europe, it provides a sharp look at those who help, and those who callously sit by doing nothing.
Read MoreJadi and Bassee live peacefully in an idyllic garden, except that the garden’s alleged owner comes to beat them every day. Jewish American writer David travels to Israel to better understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is soon mired in the cycles of violence and compassion that haunt everyday life. The Victims weaves together disparate styles and stories to dig into the parallel and often contradictory narratives of Palestinian and Israeli histories.
Performed as part of Semitic Commonwealth
Read MoreWhat do you do when the only way to live is to leave?
Jamila, a studious 17-year-old Palestinian growing up in a refugee camp in southern Lebanon, feverishly prepares for the university exam that is her only way out of the impoverished world she calls home. Urge for Going offers a variety of personalities and perspectives in a searing and funny family story.
Performed as part of Semitic Commonwealth
Read MoreSet in Nablus in the spring of 1939, Tennis in Nablus brings to life the last days of the Arab Revolt as the people of Palestine make one final attempt to drive out the British. With deep passion and bold humor, it is a genre-bending look at Palestine's embattled status through the eyes of an unflagging rebel, a tireless polemicist, and an ambitious entrepreneur. With their world igniting around them, this divided family faces their own demons as they seek to achieve peace, freedom, and dignity.
Performed as part of Semitic Commonwealth
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