“A Ghost of a Chance”
Despite the increasing diversity among American playwrights,
it’s still rare to see a work by a Thai-American playwright. In that regard,
the Pan Asian Repertory’s introduction of Prince Gomolvilas’s The Brothers Paranormal is a welcome
addition to the Off-Broadway scene. As would be expected, the play includes
links to Thai cultural issues, which may be considered its most novel contribution. |
| The Brothers Paranormal. Photo: John Quincy Lee. |
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| Vin Kridakorn, Roy Vongtama. Photo: John Quincy Lee. |
The Brothers Paranormal
is the kind of play that makes it hard to describe without giving away too
many spoilers. Let’s just say that at its core are the ethnically Thai brothers,
Max (Vin Vridakorn), born in America, and Visarut (Roy Vongtama), born in
Thailand. They live in a landlocked Midwestern state where, seeking to get their family out of debt, they’ve gone into
business as paranormal investigators aiming to debunk supernatural hoaxes. Max handles the business side, Visarut
the technical. We’ll also meet their mother, Tasanee (Emily Kuroda), who appears
to be living with, advising them, and offering background on Thai funeral customs.
Neither sibling knows much about what he’s doing but they get hired by a woman named Delia (Dawn L. Troupe). This is largely because they're Thai as well as because Max allegedly has had his own paranormal
experience as a child. Delia and her husband,
Felix (Brian D. Coats), both of them African American, have moved locally after
their home in New Orleans—to which Delia longs to return—was ruined by Hurricane
Katrina.
She wants the brothers to rid her current place of the Thai-speaking female ghost who’s been scaring the daylights out of her and preventing her from sleeping. In one of the play's multiple implausibilities, she suspects the ghost is Thai because she sounds like the staff at a restaurant she and Felix frequent. (Next time you hear an Asian language you don't know spoken, see if you can identify it by what you've overheard at the restaurants you eat at.) However, Felix, a paramedic devoted to saving lives, is skeptical, and fears for Delia’s sanity. Naturally, he’s got a little learning to do.
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| Vin Kridakorn, Dawn L. Troupe. Photo: John Quincy Lee. |
She wants the brothers to rid her current place of the Thai-speaking female ghost who’s been scaring the daylights out of her and preventing her from sleeping. In one of the play's multiple implausibilities, she suspects the ghost is Thai because she sounds like the staff at a restaurant she and Felix frequent. (Next time you hear an Asian language you don't know spoken, see if you can identify it by what you've overheard at the restaurants you eat at.) However, Felix, a paramedic devoted to saving lives, is skeptical, and fears for Delia’s sanity. Naturally, he’s got a little learning to do.
 |
| Vin Kridakorn, Emily Kuroda, Roy Vongtama. Photo: John Quincy Lee. |
Over the course of two, overly long hours, a few scenes provide
the kind of superficial thrills we’re more used to in horror movies—the kind
that influenced Gomolvilas’s dramaturgy—than in theatre. I admit to being briefly chilled
by the scary sound (by Ian Wehrle) and lighting (by Victor En
Yu Tan) tricks; the hands that seem to be pushing through a wall (special effects by Steve Cuiffo); the feral, cat-like, wall-climbing, female
ghost (Natsuko Hirano) her face hidden by her long hair; and so on. Frankly, though, I’d be just as momentarily frightened by someone sneaking up behind me and saying “boo!”
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| Dawn L. Troupe, Brian D. Coats. Photo: John Quincy Lee. |
When the characters are left to themselves, without the spectral
intrusions, things can be dull and talky, with mostly colorless, ploddingly-paced direction from Jeff Liu and inconsistent performances (and Thai accents)
from the cast, among whom Coats and Troupe offer the strongest work. The comedy
is flat, the plot too similar to famous ghost movies, a leading character’s
demise unmoving, and the explanations of paranormal phenomena insubstantial. Moreover, the
distinctions as to which characters can see the play’s ghosts and which cannot is so fuzzy
you begin to suspect that maybe all the characters are ghosts.
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| Roy Vongtama, Vin Kridakorn, Dawn L. Troupe, Brian D. Coats. Photo: John Quincy Lee. |
Sheryl Liu’s set, a bland, interior space whose two,
unadorned, beige walls meet at an upstage apex, with a large opening at either
side, serves for both the brothers’ and the couple’s residences. This results
in it sometimes being difficult to determine which is which. And too much
illusion-breaking time is devoted to dimly-lit scene changes as stagehands too
visibly move things around.
In other blows to illusion, no better way to evoke
ghostly exits has been devised than to have them simply walk off stage. We also have to accept that ghosts not only take naps but that the living can place throws over them to keep them comfy.
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| Brian D. Coats, Dawn L. Troupe. Photo: John Quincy Lee, |
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| Dawn L. Troupe. Roy Vongtama, Natsuko Hirano, Vin Kridakorn. Photo; John Quincy Lee. |
It’s good to know that there are Thai-American playwrights working
to infuse our theatre with their plays, even if this production of The Brothers Paranormal isn’t an ideal
example. Still, he play is scheduled for productions at several
Midwest and West Coast theatres, so here’s hoping it will have more than a ghost
of a chance in its future lives.
Beckett
Theatre/Theatre Row
410
W. 42nd St., NYC
Through
May 19
OTHER
VIEWPOINTS:
