"Scorched" by Wajdi Mouawad, directed by Carey Perloff at ACT

The ad for "Scorched" is misleading.  The play stars David Strathairn who happens to be one of my favorite actors.  Looking at the ad with its fiery colors and Strathairn's sad, troubled face gazing pleadingly at the viewer, you imagine Strathairn slogging through the desert under a blazing sun.  The play involves a sister's search in the Middle East  for a brother and father she never knew, as mandated by their dead mother's will - a mother who didn't speak for five years before her death- one can't help but feel becauseof the image in the ad that it must be Strathairn's character as her father she'll be searching for.   But no.  One's expectations are dashed in the first act when we see that he has been double cast not as her father but as Alphonse Lebel, a rather bumbling ("There's a fly in the appointment"), but quite effective and accommodating, estate executor, and as a harried doctor (Doctor) in an orphanage.  That said, this disappointment- my disappointment- does not detract from the power of play's message. In fact, throughout the play, we wait for him to appear to add comic relief and lightness to the dark premise.


Strathairn is known mostly for his films: the "Bourne" series; Edward R. Murrow in "Good Night and Good Luck"; Dr. Carlock in "Temple Grandin;" and as R. J. Oppenheimer in the TV bio of the genius physicist who was instrumental in designing the atomic bomb and later spoke against its use which ruined his life.  Strathairn plays characters involved in government secrecy (FBI, CIA); scientists, doctors, a seducer of young women ("Blue Car"), even creepy pedophiles. 

Mouawad's play, "Scorched," covers a period from the 1950s to the present, in Canada and the Middle East.  It is based on events that happened in playwright's life.  ("Scorched" was translated by Lina Gaboriau.)  He was born in Beirut, Lebanon.  His family fled the capital first to Paris, then to Montreal, Canada soon after the 15 year Lebanese Civil War's outbreak in 1975 which ended in 1991.  About a hundred thousand people died and millions were displaced.  It was a war that no one in his family would talk about.  Mouawad had to learn about it from books and archival material.  The focus of his play is silence and suppressed memories brought to the surface by an article of clothing, a journal and two letters, which Alphonse Lebel removes from  a small case left by their mother and gives to the siblings, triggering Janine's passionate search for her relatives. 

In this time of the so-called war on terror- occupations and uprisings in the name of "democracy" that lead to civil wars and "cleansing"; and berserk soldiers on the side of the foreign occupiers shooting up dozens of native civilians, including children- this play has special meaning.  The sister, Janine (Annie Purcell who registers her anxiety in overdone tremulous cadences) is a successful young woman who travels to the Middle East to search for her relatives while Simon remains behind, wanting no part of it.  Janine is told of horrors that could occur in any war at any time in any country, and do.  She questions villagers about the brother and father she never knew; people who knew Nawal, their mother (played by Marjan Neshat, Nawal at ages 14-40, also in tremulous cadences, and later, Jacqueline Antaramian, at 60).  A standout is Omozé Idehenre as Sawda, whom Nawal had met (in a flashback scene) in the Middle East and who becomes her traveling companion, introducing her to native rituals; and she learns burial rites.   Later, the two become militarized.  Another is Manoel Felciano as an out-of-control, cold-blooded sniper.  Dialogue repetition helps tie past and present together.  Janine and Simon (who finally reads his mother's journal) uncover shocking Oedipal  elements as the family mystery unravels and they discover the horror that caused their mother's five year silence- a distressing heritage they must live with for the rest of their lives.

Scott Bradley's scene design is spare; yet, along with Russel H. Champa's lighting, it manages to evoke Middle Eastern architecture with its cut-out sliding panels.   A startling effect is when the executor's desk sinks into the floor to become a grave.  Sounds of traffic and construction outside of Lebel's sparsely furnished office lend these scenes the authenticity of big city life.