There are coming-of-age stories, coming-out stories, and coming-to-America stories. And then there’s Song of Joy, written and performed by Carol Mazhuvancheril, which blends all those stories and more…in about 90 minutes. It also incorporates an impressive salute to Black Swan and a wonderfully wind-blown lip-sync to Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.”
Mazhuvancheril’s autobiographical show, now off-Broadway at The Tank, covers a lot of ground—both geographic and emotional. It starts in Kerala, South India, where two nuns are looking to marry off a niece and nephew (they’ll eventually become the performer’s parents). Eventually the match is made, and after their son is born, mom goes off to work as a nurse in Austria. (“Marrying a nurse is the best way to secure a steady income these days!” Mazhuvancheril’s paternal grandfather explains.) But the baby, who they call Cuckoo, stays with family in India for his first few years. “We have cows, chickens, bunnies, parakeets, a dog, and plenty of crows and aeroplanes in the sky,” he recalls. “Other than the fact that I am eating a little bit of my own hair, I would say I am doing exceptionally well.”
Eventually, Mazhuvancheril’s mom returns and brings him to Austria, where he suddenly has a little sister, and they’re all stuck in a studio apartment. He’s soon sent back to India, to boarding school in Moolamuttam (“A town far from the familiar coconut trees and rice fields of my village”). Then back to a bilingual school in Austria: “I sit at a special table with 5 brown kids who also don’t speak German. Although all five of us are different shades of brown, we are unified by our ability to speak English while the rest of the class only knows German.” That’s where, in a third-grade talent show, he wows his classmates with the aforementioned rendition of the Titanic theme song. (Between Song of Joy and Titanique, Celine Dion is having kind of a moment right now, isn’t she?) And then it’s back to India, where his father drills him day and night with multiplication tables, before eventually landing in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas, where “these American kids are calling me this thing… ‘gay’? I don’t know what it means but it sounds terrible.” As a 19-year-old college student, Mazhuvancheril sees Black Swan and becomes obsessed with all things ballet and Natalie Portman, thus leading to an ill-fated (but spiritually triumphant) audition for the dance program at Texas Tech.
Again, all of this is crammed into about 90 minutes. Including discussing his sexuality with his parents. His mom reacts with kindness. “Okay, I love you, and I want you to know there is nothing that we as a family can’t face. It must have been heavy carrying that around for so long.…” But not complete acceptance. “I am 100% positive that God will remove this obstacle from our lives and you will be normal again!” His father, however, is less tolerant, declaring that “I can’t have a sodomite in my family.” Wanting to be a good son, Mazhuvancheril agrees to talk to someone, a tea farmer named Brother Tom who claims he’s “doing the Lord’s work” by fighting against “this homosexuality evil.” Not surprisingly, the prayer (exorcism?) doesn’t work.
Toward the end, he even touches on his deep bond with his sister, played by Amanjeet Kaur, in a beautiful celebratory dance (choreographed by Alisha Desai). “I grew up navigating multiple identities. Indian, Malayali, immigrant, American, Catholic, and closeted homosexual,” Mazhuvancheril explains. That’s a lot to navigate in a single short autobiographical show; in many ways, Song of Joy feels like the start of a 300-page memoir.
Song of Joy opened Jan. 7, 2023, and runs through Jan. 29. Tickets and information: thetanknyc.org
