"WHERE WE BELONG" AT PUBLIC THEATER

 "WHERE WE BELONG, " AT PUBLIC THEATER

"WHERE WE BELONG,"

Written and performed by Madeine Sayet who was named for Jeets Bodernasha whic means flying bird who was the speaker of Mohegan, the language spoken by indigenous people.

Madeline Sayet's ancestors were those people and this play is autobiographical.

The actress is extremely fluent and has incredible energy as a narrator of her search to find a place where she would absolutely be comfortable with the most urgent feeling of belonging. That search takes her to England, the land of language, Shakespeare's language. She feels like a flying bird herself landing at many airports, restless, curious, desiring to find a final destination for the Indigenous people who for centuries have been disappearing, being displaced and out of sight.

She feels that the language will perhaps be the saving grace for her people. She enrols in a PHD programe in Shaespeare at the Royal Shaskpeare company where she acts and directs some Shakspeare plays such Tempest and relates with  the character such as Caliban.

Eventually she doesn't complete her studies,  though she finds satisfaction in Shaespeare because she thinks he is anticolonialist. She is a researcher  and very critical of colonialism and is disappointed when she visits British museums where she learns that the museum preserves the remains of at least 12-000 human beings from all over the world.

The play is directed by Mei Ann Teo and the production design is by Hao Bai with a glamorous lighting

which actually doesn't really serve the purpose of the show whic is more like an intellectual recitation

which could have been done a bit more with stillness under one focused light instead of lots of movements which distracts from the seriousness of the piece. Though Madeline Sayet is very energetic,

she somehow lacks emotional depth which prevents her to be intimate with the audience in her extremly important and painful search for belonging.

Nevertheless it's an important show and very informative about the history of Indigenous people.

Reviewed

by

Bina Sharif

ATCA, (American Theater Critics association) member

Editor/publisher: artsinternational.blogspot.com

Co-host: HI Drama

email: binashariff@gmail.com

Cell: 212-260-6207

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