SAKINA'S RESTAURANT by Aasif Mandvi. Bush Theatre to 5 January 2002.

London

SAKINA'S RESTAURANT
by Aasif Mandvi

Bush Theatre To 5 January 2002
Runs 1hr 35min No interval

TICKETS 020 7610 4224
Review Timothy Ramsden 28 November

Delightful solo, skilfully played, with humour and sadness judiciously mixed.It was developed over five years then workshopped (in the USA). And it shows, in the best way. One of the strengths of Sakina's Restaurant is its well-crafted structure. Mandvi introduces us successively to six characters, starting with the cheerfully wide-eyed waiter who's excited, yet at the last moment sad, to be flying out of India. A moment on and he's greeting us with refurbished enthusiasm in New York.

He's followed by the restaurant owner and his wife. She is wonderfully portrayed, fast-talking and excited, brushing off her husband's playful slaps half-humorously in her excitement at the prospect of a present. Until she sees what it is – a new fern for the restaurant. Then begins a decline through disappointment to a deep depression that calls out the woes of New York life and her sense of lost identity.

This is the key theme, reflected again in their daughter Sakina. All their hopes are in her, all their savings for her college education, but she wants to marry outside New York's Indian society. As for young Samir, he's assimilated to the city's fast-talk, GameBoy addicted lifestyle. For him, the biggest downer is having to visit relatives in 'stinking India.'

Meanwhile Sakina's intended, a devout Muslim student, lusts after a WASP named Karen and unable to have her, spends his eve-of-wedding following a prostitute lookalike. She, in the only hard-to-believe moment in the action, turns out to be surprisingly unmercenary.

Amid the Western fast life emerge traditional Asian tales, slow and calm in the telling, and the action's framed by the story of a stone thrown in a great river. It points again to the central theme of identity, and the desolation and exhilaration that can follow when it's been lost.

What's undiluted exhilaration is Mandvi's performance, unflaggingly moving between depth of emotion and near parodic comic characterisation. This is a one-off to latch on to while it's still here.

Performed by: Aasif Mandvi

Director/Designer: Kim Hughes
Lighting: Matt Kirby

2001-11-29 00:14:24