“Sophie’s Choice”
As probably any microbiologist can tell you, and as Wikipedia
reveals, “the rare
biosphere” is a reference to “diverse rare species of bacteria,
adapted to environmental conditions that are not common today.” Chris Cragin
Day’s topically vital, and frequently engaging, 90-minute play of that name uses
the term metaphorically to celebrate the importance of diversity and to
question the policies of our federal government (ICE, in particular) with
regard to its inhuman treatment of illegal immigrants and their legal families.
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| Natalia Plaza, Zac Owens. Photo: Sea Dog Theater. |
The situation is simple: 17-year-old high school senior, Sophie
(Natalia Plaza), is the American-born daughter of an undocumented Honduran
couple who work at a local laundry, in Raleigh, NC. She’s an extremely serious
student who dreams of being a grad student of microbiology at Duke. She comes
home one day to find her parents gone, only learning after some effort that
they’ve been arrested by ICE in a raid and are currently in detention in Ohio.
She’s been left as the chief caretaker for her two younger siblings, one an
infant we often hear crying from offstage.
Smart as a whip but also fearful of creating further
difficulties, she struggles—as per a contingency letter left for her by her
parents—to keep her crisis secret. However, another student, the nerdy but sweet,
responsible, and devotedly churchgoing Steven (Zac Owens), who has a crush on
Sophie, soon realizes what’s going on and does all he can to help resolve it. Sophie’s
parents, having foreseen such an emergency, have paid the next month’s rent, and
left some cash. After that, it’s anybody’s guess.
The basic action concerns how Sophie and Steven, with barely
any adult advice, try to resolve the situation, hashing over the various possibilities:
Quitting school and working to support her siblings? Foster care? Returning to
Honduras? Borrowing money? And, given how desperate they are, perhaps they
might even . . . well, I’ll leave that one for you to discover.
The point is that the options available to people in such circumstances—even
with support groups, including their places of worship—are extremely limited. You’ll
probably be uncomfortable with Sophie’s choice but Day suggests it may be the
only one she could reasonably take.
When you think that such tragedies occur daily in countless
variations—like the much-discussed separation of children from parents at our
southern border—you may want to scream. Even if the government is within its
rights to arrest undocumented immigrants, no matter how upstanding, God-fearing,
or valuable to the community, does it really have to do so by leaving their
children behind, without a word of notice or a means of support?
What if Sophie were not a brilliant student, was much
younger, physically or mentally handicapped, unable to work, or otherwise in serious
need of her parental support system? And what of her even younger siblings, for
whose care she’s now responsible?
The only screaming in The
Rare Biosphere is from the offstage infant. Sophie and Steven,
while showing the usual tics associated with adolescent behavior, are quite mature
and intelligent; although frustrated, and occasionally argumentative, they
manage to maintain their equilibrium better than would many adults. Both Natalia
Plaza and Zac Owens are truly convincing as the kids struggling to handle such
a complex dilemma.
In fact, because she’s writing a play, not a political
treatise, Day has crafted what is also a teenage rom-com revolving around the
virginal Sophie and Steven’s emotional awkwardness as they grow fonder of one
another. When sex enters the picture, however, it’s quickly dismissed because
they’re saving it for marriage.
This idealistic (and mildly comical) relationship, as well
as the continual reminders of the thematic connection to the actual and metaphorical
biosphere, tends to tamp down the impact of what might otherwise be far more
tearjerkingly powerful material. A fantasy scene with magical lighting (by Guy de
Lancey) and sound (by Tye Hunt Fitzgerald) is momentarily interesting but
inessential and distracting.
Christopher J. Domig has directed The Rare Biosphere for a small company called Sea Dog Theater, whose
“mission is to tell stories of alienation and reconciliation. Every play we
produce,” reads their mission statement, “explores how we are both alienated
from ourselves, each other and life’s meaning, while also striving for reconciliation,
often in strange and mysterious ways.” Their home at the moment is a general-use
auditorium in the historic (built 1848) Calvary
Church on Park Avenue and E. 21st. Street, near Gramercy Park.
The room, arranged in the three-quarters-round for around 50 spectators,
provides an expansive space (with high ceilings creating an acoustical echo) whose
rear wall is an actual kitchen, its wall opened so we can see inside; it’s
perfect for a play set in a kitchen and living room.
Guy de Lancey’s set proper is little more than a Formica
table, a mismatched set of kitchen chairs, and a small couch. Only when a
couple of scenes are performed at a library desk set in a corner of the
auditorium, forcing theatregoers to crane their necks, does the arrangement fail
to work. Those scenes are also too rapidly raced through to allow the ironic
counterpoint between the actors, one reading microbiological facts, the other immigration
laws, to fully register. On the other hand, the pace often bogs down for
the prop shifts necessitated by the episodic structure.
The Rare Biosphere,
imperfect as it is, deserves attention for attending to so critical a social
and political problem. As the program note says, the play “doesn’t offer solutions
or take sides”; it simply reminds us that people are being affected and that something
must be done. It remains to be seen if the theatre has a role to play in continuing
the debate.
Calvary
St. George’s Church
61
Gramercy Park North, NYC
Through
May 19
OTHER
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