The title of Michael John LaChiusa’s “See What I Wanna See” suggests a single perspective, but the show actually offers a kaleidoscopic approach to the truth. It ravels out one story about a murder and a rape only to follow it up, in Rashomon-like fashion, with variations on the same tale that features a businessman, his wife and a sociopath.
In this Out of the Box Theatrics revival of LaChiusa’s 2005 musical, loosely adapted from short stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, the doomed husband is first represented by a puppet and is later played by Kelvin Moon Loh. In one version, he is knifed by the sociopath (Sam Simahk), and his wife (Marina Kondo) is raped; in another, his wife cheats on her “patronizing” husband, who kills himself out of grief.
Indeterminacy — of the truth, of storytelling writ large — is the driving theme and it requires a precise balance. Happily, this production, directed by Emilio Ramos and featuring an Asian American and Pacific Islander cast, never lets us determine which multiverse is the “real” one. And having a puppet portray the husband before substituting a real actor (to play his spirit) is another clever way of shifting our certainties — or alliances.
The second act centers on a priest (Zachary Noah Piser), whose faith is waning after 9/11. His life is like “a sentence in which every word seems to be missing a letter.” Tired of providing absolution, he posts a message about an imminent miracle. News spreads like wildfire — or a conspiracy theory — in the song “Gloryday.”
As original as these stories are, “See What I Wanna See” is strewed with clichés: The thief sings about being the “devil in disguise,” and the husband, resuscitated as a ghost by a medium (a delightful Ann Sanders), needs “some sort of release.” If the lyrics are not on par with, say, the great, similarly macabre “Sweeney Todd,” the actors (especially the compelling Kondo) keep us on our toes through quicksilver changes in mood.
Though tonally different, the two acts feel like different shows rather than two halves of the same musical. What binds them are sequences about two lovers in medieval Japan that precede each act. They are told first from the perspective of the woman, Kesa (Kondo), and then her lover, Morito (Simahk). Both end as Kesa is about to plunge a knife into Morito’s throat. Whose is the truer tale? It’s impossible to say.
Ideas about spirits and violence are also aired in “Family,” an early play by the “Past Lives” filmmaker Celine Song that is running at a location in Brooklyn provided to ticket-holders. “Life is an Olympic Game hosted by a group of lunatics,” Akutagawa once wrote, and that comes close to the experience of watching “Family.” Produced by the companies Hoi Polloi and Amanda + James, it centers on three unemployed half-siblings: David (Luis Feliciano), Linus (Jonah O’Hara-David) and Alice (Izabel Mar on the night I saw the play).
Directed by Alec Duffy, “Family” is set “in the present” and takes place in the living and dining room of the house built by their father, who has recently died. About 30 audience members are seated along the rectangular perimeter as the siblings, dressed in funereal black (Oana Botez designed the costumes), enter the space.
Linus’s mother, we learn, was a giant and an astronaut who may have been strangled by her husband. David’s mother was exceptionally hirsute (with “a breast beard,” “a hand beard” and “an ass beard”) and had a fatal fall down stairs. Alice was the product of incest; her mother was believed to be “a crocodile or a screaming cat” with an “extra face.”
Casting off the water wings of realism, the play wades into hauntological territory: The siblings roll around as if possessed, order one another to pretend to die, complain about a rotten stench and have sex. A muffled buzzing sound and the flickering of a light suggest the presence of supernatural forces (Steven Leffue did the sound design; Tuçe Yasak is the lighting consultant). Does this prove Linus’s point that “who we are is simply who our parents are”?
More so than “See What I Wanna See,” “Family” courts disgust and other dark emotions as it pries up the floorboards of this family’s history. It’s a complete departure from Song’s 2020 play “Endlings” about Korean divers, and a far cry from her time-shuffling “Past Lives.”
Its close quarters enhance the sense that we are witnessing a psychic bloodletting. Off-putting? Yes. But it’s hard not to admire the actors’ commitment as they set ablaze almost every piety about the nuclear family. If the unofficial contract between an audience and a playwright stipulates that the audience pays to be entertained or edified, Song has revised that with “Family.” This play wants to offend, to disturb, to create an ash heap out of your expectations. There’s value in that, too.
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