'The Who & The What' by TheaterWorks Hartford - A Review

HARTFORD, CT - TheaterWorks Hartford is celebrating its 35th season this year. The season continues with a production of THE WHO & THE WHAT, a play written by Ayad Akhtar, that was filmed in the theater in Hartford without an audience. The filmed production had its opening night on Sunday evening, with a pre and post show Opening Night Zoom Party that included Artistic Director Rob Ruggiero and to which I was invited to attend.

THE WHO & THE WHAT is the story of Zarina, a Harvard graduate living in Atlanta in 2010, who has some issues with the place of women in her Muslim faith. She has been secretly writing a novel about the Prophet Muhammed that aims to set the record straight; when her traditional father and younger sister discover the completed manuscript, it threatens to tear her family apart. The playwright’s drama about love, art, and religion examines the wide space between tradition and contemporary lives with both humor and ferocity. One description I read noted a nod to THE TAMING OF THE SHREW; perhaps there were a few common plot points, but I would not describe Zarina as a shrew needing taming by any man.

The TheaterWorks production was directed by Aneesha Kudtarkar, a New York-based director who is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. The director described the process of bringing this family story to life in the time of a pandemic as fun, exciting and a bit scary emotionally. All required protocols were followed with guaranteeing, social distancing and mask wearing. At the theater, there were three days of walk-through rehearsals, three days of tech rehearsals and finally three days of filming in the TheaterWorks space, for the first time without wearing masks.

“The story of an immigrant family at odds with itself is an old one. At its heart, Akhtar’s play is about a father unwilling to change in order to keep up with the new world in which his daughters now live. Yet THE WHO & THE WHAT feels newly poignant in this moment of extreme national separation...In a year marked by unfamiliar distances, it feels so special to share this story and to invite you back into the theatre.” - Director Aneesha Kudtarkar

From the actors’ point of view, I was impressed that while the scenes were filmed in their entirety without an audience, they were not filmed in order, much like movies are filmed. During the opening night virtual talkback, the actors shared that the director had allowed them to rehearse the scenes in order as much as she was able to facilitate a muscle memory of the action. At least some of the scenes were filmed four times and then put together in order. I would say that the end result was well worth the restrictions that had to be in place in order to film the play for streaming.

I appreciated that the stream began with some shots of the intimate TheaterWorks theater because I have never been inside it. The filming was done with varying camera angles instead of from a fixed point in the audience. There were a handful of shots that I would have changed, but overall, it was shot as if I had been seated in the theater audience and choosing where to look.

The cast includes some talented performers. In alphabetical order, Rajesh Bose played the Muslim father Afzal, a successful business owner who does not hesitate to interfere in his oldest daughter’s lovelife. Mr. Bose returned to TheaterWorks Hartford after appearing in their recent production of THE INVISIBLE HAND; he also earned a CCC Award for DISGRACED at Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven.

Stephen Elrod gave a fine performance in his TheaterWorks Hartford debut as an earnest young convert to Islam who is an imam, a community organizer, and licensed plumber all rolled into one. Sanam Laila Hashemi, a graduate of Virginia Tech, played Afzal’s younger daughter Mahwish in her TheaterWorks debut. Jessica Jain, who earned an MFA at Louisiana State, gave an outstanding performance as the older daughter Zarina, who holds an MFA from Harvard.

The stream of the play worked flawlessly on my desktop. The set design by Brian Prather, which was adapted from a design for the stage by Michael Schweikardt, went from the family kitchen, to a restaurant perfect for a first date, to the apartment of the young couple and even to an outdoor park bench. Connecting them all was a large, creative paper and thread sculpture inspired by Pakistani that was beautifully lit by Amith Chandrashaker. Sound design by S.R. was good and the contemporary costumes by Mika Eubanks worked well on my computer screen.

The Who & The What
Streaming On Demand
November 15 — 28

Photos by Brian Prather

---

Nancy Sasso Janis, writing theatre reviews since 2012 as a way to support local venues, posts well over 100 reviews each year. In 2016, her membership in the Connecticut Critics Circle began and her contributions of theatrical reviews, previews, and audition notices are posted not only in the Naugatuck Patch but also on the Patch sites closest to the venue. Follow the reviewer on her Facebook pages Nancy Sasso Janis: Theatre Reviewer and Connecticut Theatre Previews and on Twitter @nancysjanis417 Check out the CCC Facebook page.