Let’s hear it for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Along with other grant recipients, the institute has invested in theater—theater that concentrates on science in one way or another.
No one needs to be told nowadays that science is shockingly under attack. That’s mostly due to anti-vaxxers, who’ve made the estimable Anthony Fauci their primary whipping boy.
Let’s hear it, too, for The Ensemble Studio Theatre, which for some years has been the recipient of Sloan beneficence. This salute also goes out to The Civilians and artistic director Steve Cosson, who has assumed the task of helming the newest work to join the increasing science-on-stage roster.
The welcome occasion is what you are now from Sam Chanse, most recently noticed for the propulsive “Disturbance Specialist” monologue she contributed to the commendable five-part Out of Time, now at the Public Theater.
Her new play is ostensibly about the science branch involved with researching the effects and malleability of memory. Pia (Pisay Pao) is a scientist of Cambodian background, who’s putting mice through certain paces with lab co-worker Evan (Curran Connor).
Their idea concerns whether mice trained to expect an electric twinge whenever they hear a particular sound and thus respond with fear can be disabused of the fear associated with the memory. (Not incidentally, fear is another theme coursing through Chanse’s play. )
The good news is that Pia and Evan are making headway with the experiment. The less progressive news is that they’re also making some headway on a possible romance. Pia isn’t as ready to give in to it as the good-natured, all-American Evan appears to be.
Part of the problem is that Pia has long-established trouble at home, where her immigrant mother Chantrea (Sonnie Brown) is difficult to live with. Here, memory also has just about everything to do with the tense mother-daughter relationship. No matter how hard Pia insists, Chantrea won’t recall her past. Kind of a dramatically effective memory-theme switch by Chanse, no?
Chantrea, who only touches her children at arm’s distance, has strict rules in the house, including no music unless listened to on earphones. The enforced no-no mostly affects Pia’s brother Darany (Robert Lee Leng), who has adopted American young-man behaviors, even if his favorite music is that of a Cambodian singer Chantrea seems to dislike.
Moreover, Darany has taken up with Siobhan (Emma Kikue), who’s half-Cambodian, not a big positive for either Chantrea or Pia. Added to that, Pia bears a ten-year grudge against Siobhan for, she’s convinced, getting the lively Darany into trouble with dire consequences.
Keep in mind that what you are now takes place in two time periods the audience has to keep straight. The title is intended to suggest viewing the world not in terms of Cambodian past or future but the pressing reality of current circumstances,
If that’s tricky as written, the time shifts aren’t helped by the actors not changing costumes from now to then and back again. Indicative lighting alterations don’t occur. (An-lin Dauber is the costumer, Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew, the lighting designer. Riw Rakkulchon’s light-gray set is perfect for the shades-of-gray moods.)
The what you are now action begins when Pia is at her computer as Siobhan, unannounced, drops in after, presumably, a 10-year absence. She’s hoping to have Pia encourage Chantrea to do an interview about her past for a project.
Pia, still angry at Siobhan and at her mother and at who-knows-what-else, is anything but helpful. Worse, memories having nothing to do with scared mice start flaring. Playwright Chanse craftily works them into an intermissionless 100-minute play in which all five characters caught in the heavy whirl reach redemptive conclusions. To her credit, Chanse presents no easy solutions, which marks her, with Out of Time’s “Disturbance Specialist,” as a new voice demanding attention.
Notable as well is that Cosson tends to the five-member cast with his usual forcefulness. Pao does irritability extremely well. Brown does cold insularity well. Leng does loose-limbed youth extremely well. Kikue does uncertainty extremely well. Connor does likability extremely well.
Enhancing the what you are now appeal is its look into the life of a family with a Cambodian past. In the last year or so—and in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement—the increased inclusion of many types of lives mattering is excitingly illuminating. More than that, the revelation that families from wherever are in so many ways alike is an additional gift.
When Leo Tolstoy wrote “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” he wasn’t entirely correct. Playwright Chanse offers proof. Individual memories differ, but the impact of memory is inalterable.
what are you now opened March 17, 2022, at the Ensemble Studio Theatre and runs through April 3. Tickets and information: ensemblestudiotheatre.org
