apara.txt

http://www.nightnews.net/fringe2008.htm#apara

InvAsian Festival: Another Paradise - Kali Theatre
venue :: club WEST @ Quincentenary Hall, The Royal College of Surgeons
see links :: http://www.kalitheatre.co.uk
category :: Theatre
Reviewed date :: 23 08 08

Review: A first visit to the new Club West venue at the Royal 
College of Surgeons, Quincentenary Hall to see what promised to
be a topical and controversial comedy about sex, corruption and
identity. 'Kali Theatre,' were up from London and they specialise
in presenting work by British Asian woman playwrights. 'Another 
Paradise' by Sayan Kent employed some interesting and clever flyer
designs in the shape of i.d.'s to draw its customers in. The show
starts off with some sci fi multimedia projection on the left of 
the stage as the cast come on and do a clever dance routine 
featuring retina, palm, fingerprint and card ID verification. 
This opening raised some wry smiles but what followed over the 
next hour and fifty minutes fell far short of belly laughs and 
was more 'funny-peculiar' than 'funny-haha.' In fact no laughter 
was heard at all from the audience throughout this quite long show!
It may be that the issues were too serious to be turned into a 
'West End style farce.' Ultimately it seemed that the pace of the
production and the writing were out of step and just not funny 
enough to get the desired 'laugh out loud' response. There was 
nothing especially funny about the picture of the future presented
by this show, that is not so distant from where we are today. 
A distant, unhelpful, inflexible officialdom, with blurring between
government and the power of faceless corporations, where identity 
verification becomes a Kafkaesque nightmare, fails to hit the funny
bone. A world where identity theft is rife and the state resorts to
'anticipatory measures' e.g., acts repressively and detains people 
or sentences them to internal exile, seems more the subject of 
biting political critique and horror not 'light entertainment.' 
There are numerous examples around today of vaunted technology that
fails to be up to the job and becomes the subject of corporate 
embarrassment and arse covering by .gov departments, so that these
concepts at least are not new to us. Sayan Kent's best running gag
is to show the way everyone plays ball with an 'official identity'
that everyone can see is plainly wrong but still they accept it as
the 'official truth' hmmm! It seems that the whole matter of 'ID 
cards' and the bleak, dark, determinist, technological future that
they represent still awaits an appropriate angry, artistic, 
intellectual and theatrical response. Sayan Kent fails to provide
this with her lightweight, quaint, mildly eyebrow raising, farcical
treatment. This is unfortunate as the cast and director generally 
imbue the whole misplaced effort with some rather superior production
values. Cast members Chand Martinez (Enoch) and Sakuntula Ramanee 
(Abigail) generally steal the show with their likeable characters,
matching them with engaging and charming performances.
2 gold bats

by John C Vassallo