A Room in India
Opening Night: December 5, 2017
Closing: December 20, 2017
Theater: Park Avenue Armory
What is the role of theater and art in a world dominated by terrorism and hostility? This is the central question at the heart of A Room in India (”Une chambre en Inde”), the latest epic by the matriarch of exploratory French theater Ariane Mnouchkine and her company Théâtre du Soleil. After astonishing Armory audiences with their two-part work LES ÉPHÉMÈRES—“steady stream that ultimately opens out into a vista of beauty both humble in its mundane details and immense in its emotional impact” (THE NEW YORK TIMES)—in 2009, this visionary collective returns for the North American premiere of this landmark new work, following the adventures of a touring French theater company stranded in India without a director while the world around them falls into disarray. Performed by 35 multinational actors, this tour-de-force transcends Eastern and Western drama and features a special performance of Terukkuttu—a traditional form of theater practiced in South India. The production touches on pressing issues that societies around the globe are currently facing, from terrorism and religious extremism to climate change and gender equality. The end result is a manifesto of the power of theater to heal a community, as well as an exploration of how to talk about the chaos of a world that has become incomprehensible.
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December 6, 2017
Funny how four hours doesn’t feel so long when you are given the whole world in exchange.
And that’s what’s on offer in the Théâtre du Soleil’s boundary-busting production of “A Room in India,” which opened Tuesday night at the Park Avenue Armory: The whole awful, silly, disturbing, mystifying, contradictory world in one sitting.
Perhaps that bounty is to be expected from a theater collective whose 100 members, representing 26 nationalities, each get a say in the proceedings (and identical portions of meals at their Paris base). And yet even in comparison with other Soleil productions — including “Les Éphémères,” which appeared at the Amory in 2009 — there is something especially anarchic and encompassing about “A Room in India.” It sometimes feels like watching a chicken dance with its head cut off.
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