17 Border Crossings (New York Theatre Workshop)

Thaddeus Phillips has traveled all over the world.  With his wife Tatiana Mallarino, the show’s director, he has been working on this particular piece for five years.  17 Border Crossings debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2015 and has since been played in twenty five countries on five continents.  They have revisited their work, taking into account the tenuous nature of borders in our current geopolitical climate.

Mr. Phillip’s scenic design is simple and effective.  He uses a chair, a table and a fifteen foot bar of light to communicate his story and share his observations.  In a promising start, he discusses the history of passports.  Apparently you can microwave your passport for ten seconds so the chip which tracks your movement will be disabled.  That discussion is one of many which comes up briefly and is quickly abandoned for the next chapter.

There are seventeen specific crossings chronicled in this play.  The first one occurs on a train in 1999.  He is traveling from Hungary to the newly formed Serbia.  Playing all the roles, he is a ticket collector and another passenger.  That passenger has five suitcases tightly wrapped in blankets, plastic and duct tape.  At one point the stranger throws them out the window.  Obviously someone is expecting them.  What’s in there?  Why?  Never mind, time to move on to the next crossing.

This type of play structure results in a few interesting tales being lost amidst the acting exercise.  Mr. Phillips is a very winning stage presence, comfortable with believable accents in many languages.  When I heard “the eleventh crossing is from Egypt into Gaza” I had mixed feelings.  This particular crossing was in a tunnel (where trade happens) so I was certainly interested in the location.  I also realized, however, that there were still six more crossings yet to be presented.

The unlikely stars of this show are the lighting and sound designers.  David Todaro’s bar of light can suggest a train car or a police car.  The light bar moves up and down as the stories are told in endlessly inventive ways.  When you add Robert Kaplowitz’s crisp and vivid sound effects, the promise of what this show could be is clear.

On a vacation with his family, they are playing on a beach.  His son is pretending to drive a boat while he and his wife bury “treasures” in the sand like water bottles and keys.  The son is so excited and keeps asking “are we there yet?” so he can jump off the boat and start searching.  We then hear about a man and his son fleeing Syria into Greece  After a harrowing sea journey, the father is asked “are we there yet?”  Mr. Phillips commends the father’s courage to reply that their journey was just beginning.

Moments that attempt to bring depth and meaning are far too infrequent.  They are also skimmed over so fast that nothing meaningful has time to stick.  Why is this tale being told?  Is this a travelogue or a commentary on the world?  Without a point of view, 17 Border Crossings is neither.

www.nytw.org

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