Ambitious one woman show pulls too hard on heart strings
Theatrical Outfit’s current show, Harabel: A Sparrow Over a Minefield, involves a woman with a vision, a play, a story, and a voice to to tell it. The concept of pulling off a one woman show is foreign to me and extremely difficult. Jonida Beqo, the writer and performer, has enough energy and spunk to carry 90-minutes. Her poetic rhythm and use of language was beautiful and engaging. But when it comes to telling a story about a real life, immigration, war torn cruel worlds, religion, and even a sprinkling of feminism, it tends to get heavy in an unbearable way.
The opening, what I thought was going to be a more developed framing of her tale, was intriguing. It has bits of humor and audience interaction. It held an element of divine uncomfort as the members of the audience were confused about what was actually occurring and if this was the show they signed up for. It started cute and round itself out to an introduction that held promise in the idea of everyone has a story, a secret, and we were about to her Beqo’s. Which we did. But after about 20 to 30 minutes of that story, it began to get repetitive, jump through time in a strange and obscure way, and turn what should have been empathy producing scenes into times of disengagement.
The details of her immigration from Albania are heartbreaking and I’m sure resonate with so many tales from current immigrants in the United States. She ran in fear, she wanted better, she lusted for the American dream and opportunity, and found herself submerged in a land, during a time much harsher in terms of racism and prejudice than today, that held more than what she bargained for. The honesty and rawness of the emotions and experience make her tale endurable for the sake of needing to know her, what she went through, and understand what we didn’t before. She is critical of American women and America for what they have put a veil over. This was all well told. The problem was that we jumped back and forth in a dislocating zig zag of a timeline, forcing the listener to have to leave the stage and Beqo and figure out where we were and what was happening. There were repetitions of stories that brought the play to a halt and ended the momentum that she worked so hard to build up. You began the show listening to her and engaging emotionally, but ended completely without impact.
It felt very much like a show you would see in a hideaway Brooklyn theatre that only the cool kids knew about. The narration was pretty much entirely told through poetry, and it made you realize why Beqo is so renowned for slam poetry and her stringing of words. I wanted to write down every metaphor and save it for later. I love the mixing of mediums and the addition of new elements into the theatre world. Beqo brought in poetry and dance into this one person ensemble. And the language and movement brought in a new feeling of escape. But once things started to go a little awry, it felt as if the slam poetry and almost promoting her work through this medium became the tactic.
The end of the play seemed to happen a few times. There was a moment where she did a slam poem after the announcer, seemingly bringing us back to the framing device, said for the performers to take their places. It fit, it was what I would have imagined as a great ending, clapping even began. But there was more. And the more was unnecessary. We went back to the narration and then once again heard a slam poem. This one was disjointed from the story she told, and held elements that seemed to be lacking throughout the rest of the narration. It was strange to go from the importance of family and freedom and life, to the importance of Jesus. It felt like preaching. And I wasn’t in the mood for church. After that the real ending came, but the luster had all worn away.
Harabel is an experience. An important one. It is relevant and strong but needs some editing and fine tuning before it can truly sing. It is running at Theatrical Outfit until November 10.
