four stars | Dangerous Common Sense

“Behfarmaheen (If You Please)” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Behfarmaheen (If You Please)

Created and performed by Barzin Akhavan
Directed by Desdemona Chiang 

Ashland, OR at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival July 31 – September 15, 2024

Behfarmaheen Masthead, OSF design by Krzysztof Bednarski

Author and Performer Barzin Akhavan starts the story of his schizophrenic but also blended American/Persian life with a long dialog in Farsi. He explains in the after-show talkback that the opening mimics his and his family’s feelings of not understanding during their first days/months/years in the United States. The scene works and he didn’t really need to explain his intent, but his desire that we UNDERSTAND is both tangible and touching.

The feeling of wanting to share, explain, and celebrate runs throughout the one-act show. Behfarmaheen, like the other one-person shows at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival this year, is a very personable, very moving, very revelatory treat.

He helps the audience share the feeling of foreignness in two especially noteworthy scenes. In one he teaches the us how to pronounce the play’s name, Behfarmaheen. We are learning the meaning and how to say this foreign Farsi word, and that process helps us experience some of what he and his family went through.

Similarly, to let us join in a celebration Barzin teaches us how to dance like his Persian family. It was quick, eye-opening, and fun.

Barzin Akhavan. Photo by Jenny Graham.

Barzin was four in 1980 when his family moved to the US from his birth country Germany. They were already refugees from the Iran and moving, trying to put down roots, and trying to figure out the culture is obviously THE focus of his formative years. But, wait, there’s more.

We see and feel him and his family deal with the American culture, strive to understand, and still be an outsider. But there are scenes that focus on him becoming Homecoming King of his high school and a passing mention of how he was student body president. These aren’t positions of an interloper, at least not in my experience.

Well, maybe. Because his mother and father, especially his father, take some time comprehending who their son is. To the present day.

The dichotomy between achieving objective success and feeling seen and understood enriches the show from scene to scene. Barzin wants us to see how we feel and react isn’t dependent on the culture we grew up in… except, very pointedly, when it does affect how we view our lives and what’s going on.

I was intrigued with the details of Barzin’s life. From being the district winner of the Daughters of the American Revolution high school essay contest to wrestling on stage naked in a political/emotional comedy sketch in front of his unprepared father, the man has breadth and amazing stories. I loved hearing all about him and having his basically positive perspective seep out throughout the show.

I confess that some of his approach confused me. He is focused on 1980 with all the important events in the world that happened that year and has a storyboard in the lobby before the show that showcased Iran-Iraq war, John Lenon assignation, the exiled Shah dying in Egypt, more Iranian politics, Richard Pryor burning himself while freebasing, the “Miracle on Ice” at the winter Olympics, and more. Then during the performance Barzin runs a game show where two real audience members compete for prizes while they answer up to six questions about the storyboard.

Barzin Akhavan hosting the game show in Behfarmeheen. Photo by Jenny Graham.

Huh?

I get that Barzin’s coming to America in 1980 fit in with the other important world events, but, but, but… the events are not intrinsically part of any scene in the show. The turmoil in Iran most likely forced his family to emigrate and eventually immigrate to the US, but I don’t recall that being stated? And, I need an explanation of why he selected certain events. And, the game show was not exciting or fun.

The best I can figure out is that Barzin really wanted people to focus on the 1980 events and offering a prize for remembering the most facts made some of us concentrate on the high/low points of the year. I would weave some of the stories into a scene or two or else I’d leave out the storyboard and game show.

Barzin Akhavan. Photo by Jenny Graham.

The other distraction I ran into was the breaking of chronological order. I felt I was seeing progression and better understanding of life, college and acting were coming along. Then we were back in high school or before.

I didn’t know when I saw the show that many moments are adlibbed. He mentioned that format in the talkback. Whenever the lights come on and show the audience, Barzin is not on script. Apparently, there is a phrase or hand gesture that lets the stage manager know that the scene is over, but there is not a fixed story.

I assume Barzin is traveling down some activity, audience mood, or something-induced memory which he translates into a scene. Maybe the chronological location of the scene is not important and that’s why the show goes back and forth throughout his life. And, I realize that life and its revelations are not necessarily well ordered. Still, I would appreciate a deliberate unveiling of the overall story that the improv structure does not support.

Fortunately, overall, this is another must-see show featuring a man whose work I’ve long enjoyed. And, I need to acknowledge he must have incredible guts to put so any sides of him on stage for us.

Thank you, Barzin for sharing, showing, and letting us in. And, thank you OSF for supporting Barzin and the other performers this year that gave us such intimate moments in the Thomas.

Behfarmaheen is definitely worth seeing. A happy event!

Henry V

Ashland, Oregon
at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Henry V

Ensemble as Chorus. Photo by Jenny Graham.

by William Shakespeare
directed by Rosa Joshi

Daniel José Molina (Henry V) and other cast members deliver many truly spectacular moments — especially in Act II — which make this Henry a must see. Unfortunately, Director Rosa Joshi’s choices diminish the impact of the play itself and leaves the audience to appreciate master-class acting set in a confusion of activity.

I think the audience is supposed to [endlessly] appreciate the turmoil and indiscriminate horrors of the machine of war. Toward that end, actors push stacks of boxes across the stage mimicking siege engines or walls or something. In fact, the before play opens members of the cast are twisting a changing pile of boxes around and around upstage. I’m sure it’s meaningful. But, the only thought these leaden-looking props give me is that the director has seen too many Transformer movies.

To add to the disorder, the actors play multiple roles, sometimes up to 6 or 7, if you count “Chorus” and “Ensemble” separately. The differences among the actors’ personas seems deliberately vague as if to remind us how similar to each other all sides in a conflict are. The problem, of course, is that Shakespeare had a plot going, and it was hard for me at times to tell who/which person or which side was doing was doing what. If the actor had a hat on he was an English low-life, without it he might be a French noble. Grrr!

Chaos on Stage: Jessica Ko, Kimberly Scott, Robert Vincent Frank, Shaun Taylor-Corbett. Photo by Jenny Graham.

The effect of the chaos is distraction, not drama. I was horrified to hear the rousing, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more” go by like a throw-away line, losing the competition for attention to some random movement, yelling, or flash bang device going off.

Act I starts off well with an interesting delivery of Chorus’ “O for a Muse of fire…” I also appreciated the early court scene where Henry tries to ensure the righteousness of his going to war. Very nice, deliberate acting. But, then the plot becomes secondary to the motion on stage for the remainder of the act, save for one show-stopping moment.

G Valmont Thomas

The actors and audience take a collective breath when Pistol (Kimberly Scott) announces, “Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead.”

Last year’s Falstaff, well known and well liked actor, G. Valmont Thomas, died last December. This Festival season is dedicated to his memory, and many of the Henry V cast worked with him as Falstaff in Henry IV parts 1 and 2. Pistol’s line stopped hearts throughout the theater for it was too true.

Act II cruised along uneventfully until Molina started interacting with individual characters. My daydreaming was first interrupted when Henry confronts his old friend Bardolph, played by Robert Vincent Frank. Bardolph has been caught misbehaving and was brought to his buddy Hal for adjudication. The lines stopped and the two men looked into each other’s eyes, the damning transaction completed wordlessly. Henry follows through with Shakespeare’s narration, but the sentence, appeal, and rejection were all done by the eyes. Both men communicated completely without a sound.

From that scene on, we are treated to excellent vignettes, usually involving Molina. Henry’s wandering in disguise among his troops, picking up their mood, works well. The battle scenes blur but Henry’s humanity away from the overwrought staging is mesmerizing. Even the courtship scene with the French princess (Jessica Ko) gives a tenderness that avoids any disempowering smirk of politics.

As littered with scene gems as Act II is, the power of Shakespeare never reigns. There is always too much activity and too much “who is that again?”

This Henry V showcases Daniel José Molina. His acting has improved from flawed in his first OSF seasons to artistry in this starring role. It’s very worth seeing.

Daniel José Molina as Henry V. OSF photo.

I am glad the director allowed Molina and the other actors time and space to deliver their performances. I just wish she had given Shakespeare and his story the same courtesy.

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