Usher Nonsense #49 – Bridge and Tunnel
Bridge and Tunnel - written and performed by Sarah Jones Directed by Tony
Taccone; conceived by Ms. Jones and Steve Colman;
Lighting by Alexander V. Nichols; Sound by Chris Meade and DJ Rekha;
Scenic Painting by Blake Lethem; Presented by Meryl Streep and the
Culture Project - at The Culture Project, 45 Bleecker St.
Welcome to a poetry concert/slam/evening titled ''I Am a Poet Too'.' This stands
for ''Immigrant and Multiculturalist American Poets or Enthusiasts Traveling
Toward Optimistic Openness.''
It is an evening of one actor and fourteen characters: Pakistani, Chinese, Mexican,
Russian, Australian, Haitian, Jamaican, Jordanian -- and a few second and third
generation: a Rumanian Jew, a Latina, a Dominican, a Brooklyn Rapper. Jones
does men and women, young and old. Each one has a story and some don't want
you to know it, but Jones is a good writer and the story comes out anyway.
Jones is a wonderful talent, and the gift that she gave me is that I left the theatre
scanning the audience and thinking, "Whence do you come? What is your story?
How did you get here?" I'm still doing it.
The question for me is - why is this a one-person show? I know I know I know.
So we can see this woman perform. I know from one-person shows - I've done
two of them. And this time I left the theatre thinking how much richer this evening
would have been with two other actors. It would free up Ms. Jones, whose
accents occasionally overlap; it would ease up the blocking and logistics; it would
also eave us to think completely about the stories instead of being caught up in the
"I can't believe she could change that fast" chatter that was filling the house as
people left.
The danger of this show is that can become more about Sarah Jones than about her
characters. That would be a pity. Unlike her characters, the audience for this
show is 99% white and living in a world where most of these poets remain invisible.
© 2004 Tulis McCall
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