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Disappointment is a matter of frustrated expectation. In this case, we blame Sheila Callaghan's account of what prompted her to write this play:
The genesis of We Are Not These Hands came to Ms. Callaghan during a trip to China, where in poor villages along the Yangtze, she noted illicit cyber-cafes hidden down side alleys. In news stories at home, she read of the death of 41 students, blown up while assembling firecrackers in their eastern China school [see photo, right], and of 24 people dying in Beijing when two teenagers set fire to an unlicensed cyber-cafe from which they'd been 86ed.
We just assumed this was to prep us for an earful of earnest agitprop about Rich World/Poor World divisions -- which we were okay with. We got Lolita-meets-Psycho-meets-Clockwork Orange instead. We realize this will suit some of you just fine. If so, skip to the end for ticket info.
The play stars two 15-ish street urchins, Moth (Amy Conant) and Belly (Tinka Jonakova), who spend their days outside a cybercafe, staring at what they think is the reality of life elsewhere and talking in a made-up pidgin of eye-watering irritation ("He put his kisser on my tooty!" "It hallucination!" "I drug 'em in the dirt!"). Crap. They sound like Tonto's daughters. They spot an American (Mark Fullerton) doing some economic research online, and decide to hop into some convenient hooker-wear, crash the cafe, and see what develops. (We mentally award Fullerton for memorizing a part so peppered with ellipses.)
The American, come to find out, is a mentally unstable refugee unable to finish his dissertation (or a single spoken sentence), who records messages to his (dead, it turns out) mother and takes Moth back to his hostel for sex. They fall for each other, which peeves Belly, who wants to get out of there and into the magical cyber-realm as soon as possible. She comes up with a plan that could have been lifted from an episode of Scooby Doo. We're still weirded out by the 15-year-old Pretty Woman thing.
That recap may sound more entertaining than the show really is. (We did laugh when Moth gives her American a purple butt plug as a present: "It was mummers!") The play wants to be subversive, but mainly is just lazy, coasting along on hopes that we'll get what's signified but not dramatized. What we actually saw was ultimately two well-fed 20-something women spouting childish gobbledygook for about two hours, before the playwright gave up hope and quit without writing an ending.
If you go: Take advantage of the theater's bar beforehand. You can take drinks in with you, which we recommend.
We Are Not These Hands
Theatre Off Jackson
Through March 3 (Thurs-Sat, 8pm)
Tickets: $15 general$12 students/seniors
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Since when is it acceptable to judge a play based on the thing or event that inspired the writer? Or to critique the play based on a proram note? Or even to blame the writer for your own thwarted expectations rather than taking the play at face value?
Perhaps one would do better to evaluate the play that was written rather than the play one wishes had been written.
jlk: I'm not sure if you're critiquing my review in general, or if you liked the play. If you're a fan, I'd encourage you to put your two cents in.
Otherwise, that's not just a program note -- it's from the website, used as marketing material, and I didn't think it was particularly representative of the experience. There are two parts to the review: 1) My expectation was one thing and I got another -- and 2) I didn't think the other thing wasn't very good, as I indicate in the recap of the play.