VIEWPOINTS – Compelling portraits of young women in the process of forming themselves: Layla Khoshnoudi’s I’M NOT EVEN HALF and Melis Aker’s FISH

Officially opening over the past few days were a pair of Off-Broadway co-productions that both feature young women in the process of forming themselves. Here are my thoughts on these compelling, darkly comic portraits of unmoored lives as they painfully journey to self-realization.

Layla Khoshnoudi in The Bushwick Starr and ¡OYE! Group’s co-production of “I’m Not Even Half” (photo by Maria Baranova).

I’M NOT EVEN HALF
The Bushwick Starr / ¡OYE! Group
Through October 24

First up at The Bushwick Starr is Layla Khoshnoudi’s solo play I’m Not Even Half (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), which is being co-produced by the Starr and frequent collaborators ¡OYE! Group. In short, the work follows one S, a young Brooklyn-based Iranian American woman, as she unconcernedly traverses her superficial, sadly meandering life, even after being struck by a car while on her phone — at least that’s what we’re led to believe. While watching Khoshnoudi’s dark comedy, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a young Phoebe Waller-Bridge in her breakout solo performance in Fleabag. Much like getting to know Waller-Bridge’s blasé anti-heroine, S oozes boredom and indifference, and both of their misadventures are a bit like watching slow motion trains careening off their tracks. These are women who seek validation and attention from undeserving men in their lives, all the while exhibiting signs of delusional superiority around other women and underlying self-loathing. Suffice to say, all this leads to some rather questionable and reckless decisions. Only when S comes across videos of a women-led uprising in Iran — and comes to terms with the physical of psychological impact of her accident — does she start grounding herself in her heritage and dislodged identity. Luckily, Khoshnoudi is a keenly observant actor with the ability to convey an essentially unlikeable character with clear-eyed nonchalance. Indeed, there’s something quietly subversive and mischievous — and bold — about choosing to create and play a character who finds a weird sense of satisfaction in self-sabotaging herself. The production has been staged with subtle theatricality by director Machel Ross, who imbues S’s journey a sort of disorienting, free-falling weightlessness.

Alyssa May Gold and Yasmin Ranz-Lind WP Theater and Signature Theatre Company’s production of “Fish” by Melis Aker (photo by Joan Marcus).

FISH
WP Theater / Signature Theatre Company
Through October 25

Then there over at WP Theater, you’ll find the Off-Broadway production of Fish (RECOMMENDED), a captivating if somewhat uneven new play by Melis Aker that’s being co-presented by the folks over at Signature Theatre Company. As in Layla Khoshnoudi’s aforementioned solo play I’m Not Even Half, Aker’s coming-of-age piece features a reckless young woman at its center. This would be Karya, a London-based high schooler of Turkish decent, who delves into the dark, knotted corners of the internet to attempt to glean the whereabouts of her brother, whose disappearance has rocked the lives of his family and friends. When this well-intentioned quest turns into a money-making scheme to steal money from the terrorist group ISIS — which she suspects might have recruited her brother — Karya gets sucked into a black hole of greed and reckless decision-making. It wouldn’t be spoiling anything important if I told you that the good times eventually become unsustainable for our young protagonist. Dispersed throughout are swimming lesson sessions that, while amusingly fleshing out the love/hate bond between Karya and her immigrant single mother Ceyda (played with touching specificity by Roxanna Hope Radja), contribute little to the central arc of the show. Overall, I found the outrageousness of Aker’s world (efficiently realized by director Tatiana Pandiani) fascinating to dive into (pun intended), and the questions she raises surrounding determining one’s identity and socio-economic survival in this muddled world — where the boundary between reality and make believe is increasingly blurred — are though-provoking. Although there are dark and prickly moments in the play, Fish is first and foremost a comedy. Thankfully, most of the humor lands due to the boisterous, pointed performances being given by the likes of Yasmin Ranz-Lind as Karya and Alyssa May Gold as her best friend Libby.

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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