THE CRY OF THE REED
by Sinan Unel
The Huntington Theater – Calderwood Pavilion
Sets: Eugene Lee
Lights: Michael Chybowski
Costumes: Laurie Churba Cohen
“On a long, mostly bare stage where the walls are made entirely of doors, Unel’s play, The Cry of the Reed, presents two interconnected dramas. Goldstein has a huge task in drawing the script’s many sectors and layers into a unified shape, not to mention putting the writer’s vision into synch with the actors’ interpretations. He does a fine job: the staging is fluid, mood and tone shift smoothly, and the performances are nuanced.”
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In this setting, less labyrinthine than conceptually porous, both God and the Devil reside in the details, and the details are everywhere lovingly illuminated, both by Michael Chybowski’s lighting and by the director, who shepherds the cast’s performances along the tightest of paths. The philosophical and theological meaning packs tightly and carefully into the play’s two hours and forty minutes are dazzling, kaleidoscopic; the play’s emotional intensity reaches fever pitch of mortal terror, and recedes to a delicate note of mournful longing; Director Daniel Goldstein and the cast keep step with all along the way.
Goldstein has a huge task in drawing the script’s many sectors and layers into a unified shape, not to mention putting the writer’s vision into synch with the actors’ interpretations. He does a fine job: the staging is fluid, mood and tone shift smoothly, and the performances are nuanced.
-Kilian Melloy – Edge Boston
Turkish-American playwright Sinan Unel’s drama about the Middle-Eastern conflict, ``The Cry of the Reed,'' is as complex and confusing as the events of the Iraqi War, but in its mirroring of reality it is impossible to forget. Despite some speechifying and overwriting, the play has been served by a fine production, directed by Daniel Goldstein
-Iris Fanger, The Patriot Ledger