It’s official. Sarab Kamoo is still amazing.
I remember her best from her many chameleonic roles in Nine Parts of Desire; she’s also impressed in Be Here Now, Silent Sky, Boom and Panache at Williamston. This time, she fully embodies both a father and a daughter in Denmo Ibrahim’s unique and mesmerizing script, Baba.
Because Ibrahim is of Egyptian descent and the title sounds foreign (and perhaps because there is so much immigration/deportation trauma in the news these days) I expected the show to be more about those issues. It does include the Egyptian immigrant flavor and context — but it ends up feeling very universal about the love and frustrations and misunderstandings and bond between father and child.
The versatile set (Ranae Selmeyer) includes a rolling tall chest which serves as a “dressing table” as Sarab pins up her braid, pastes on her mustache, and magically becomes a very convincing, garrulous immigrant father. It is the 1980s and he is ingratiating his way through a seriously frustrating bureaucracy to get a passport for his American-born 5-year old daughter. Many other characters are brought to life by his conversations with them.
Then, a crisis, and the tables turn. It’s the 2010s and Sarab transforms into the likewise-very-convincing daughter, now a grown, all-American woman, still reflecting some of dad's inherited garrulousness. We learn more about the situation with Mom through a cache of letters.
This is 90 minutes of magic (no intermission) and indeed, a tour-de-force performance from Sarab Kamoo, under the deft direction of Tony Caselli.
Baba continues through May 25. Remember, Williamston now has both Sunday AND Thursday 2pm matinees. Night shows are now 7:30 — AND Wilbur the donation pig now has an attached tablet that will happily take your credit card if you don’t have cash to donate to his piggy-bank belly.
Tickets and info at http://www.williamstontheatre.org
I remember her best from her many chameleonic roles in Nine Parts of Desire; she’s also impressed in Be Here Now, Silent Sky, Boom and Panache at Williamston. This time, she fully embodies both a father and a daughter in Denmo Ibrahim’s unique and mesmerizing script, Baba.
Because Ibrahim is of Egyptian descent and the title sounds foreign (and perhaps because there is so much immigration/deportation trauma in the news these days) I expected the show to be more about those issues. It does include the Egyptian immigrant flavor and context — but it ends up feeling very universal about the love and frustrations and misunderstandings and bond between father and child.
The versatile set (Ranae Selmeyer) includes a rolling tall chest which serves as a “dressing table” as Sarab pins up her braid, pastes on her mustache, and magically becomes a very convincing, garrulous immigrant father. It is the 1980s and he is ingratiating his way through a seriously frustrating bureaucracy to get a passport for his American-born 5-year old daughter. Many other characters are brought to life by his conversations with them.
Then, a crisis, and the tables turn. It’s the 2010s and Sarab transforms into the likewise-very-convincing daughter, now a grown, all-American woman, still reflecting some of dad's inherited garrulousness. We learn more about the situation with Mom through a cache of letters.
This is 90 minutes of magic (no intermission) and indeed, a tour-de-force performance from Sarab Kamoo, under the deft direction of Tony Caselli.
Baba continues through May 25. Remember, Williamston now has both Sunday AND Thursday 2pm matinees. Night shows are now 7:30 — AND Wilbur the donation pig now has an attached tablet that will happily take your credit card if you don’t have cash to donate to his piggy-bank belly.
Tickets and info at http://www.williamstontheatre.org
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