Vignettes
of a Border Checkpoint ****
By Elyse Orecchio (guest reviewer)
Are there any sweeter
words for tween and teen theatergoers than “Take out your cell phones—no,
really!” In Kaneza Schaal’s and Christopher Myers’s Cartography at the
New Victory Theater, the audience is invited mid-show to log in to a designated
Wi-Fi network and map their family history by selecting their countries of
origin.
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| All photos: Elman Studio. |
Impressively, the phone
business is handled swiftly and the performance resumes. The actors on stage
are back at a border checkpoint waiting room, where much of the action has
taken place thus far.
Written by Myers and
directed by Schaal, Cartography is inspired by the artists’ work in
Munich with refugee
youth, ages 11-17, from over 12 different countries, including Syria,
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Rwanda. Schaal and Myers use map-making as a tool to
help these young people share their stories, represented via four
storytellers.
As the refugees (Janice
Amaya, Noor Hamdi, Victoria Nassif, and Malaika Uwamahoro) wait around for
their paperwork to be processed, they muse about their experience. Migrating
from the Middle East, Africa, and South America, this ain’t their first
rodeo—that, is, border. In fact, it’s one person’s seventh. Frustrated by the never-ending
pile of forms that ask them why they have arrived but provide tiny boxes for
answers, as if their life can be summed up in so small a space, they share
snippets of stories of the journeys that have gotten them to this point. 
In one scene, the
storytellers take turns blowing up an inflatable raft with a manual pump,
creating a frenetic pulse as the story of a separated father and son builds,
culminating in the actors all climbing into the raft in a silent moment, as the
waves surround them (Myers also designed the production).
Eventually, the ensemble
steps forward to reveal themselves as actors by shedding the accents they have
been using. They take turns delivering monologues of their histories, which I
thought the most engaging segment because of the depth of the personal
narratives that were lacking in the bits and pieces of the previous refugee vignettes. 
The production is
written for young audiences, so there’s an intentional lightness and humor to its tone, even in the face of serious, sometimes tragic, content.
Before the show,
families participate in educational activities in the New Victory lobby,
including a neat, virtual-reality glimpse at refugees in a raft, the chance to
build one’s own passport (stickers are provided!), and to explore questions
like, “Why would someone flee from home?” and “What does hope mean to you?”
Cartography succeeds as an excellent catalyst for discussion
among young people, inviting them to explore their own history and effectively
draw their own map.
New Victory Theater
209 W42., NYC
Closed January 19
Elyse Orecchio studied musical theatre at Emerson College, acting at CUNY Brooklyn College, and English Linguistics & Rhetoric at CUNY Hunter College. She has worked in nonprofit communications for more than a decade and lives in Sunnyside, Queens. eorecchio@gmail.com IG: @elyseorecchio
