Waterlogged
nytheatre.com review by Joe Beaudin
August 22, 2011
A simple story. Relevant characters. Artistic talent. Performance: good. And a dash of ingenuity and wackiness. This is a recipe for a solid piece of theater. And Waterlogged is just that, baked to perfection.
Waterlogged, written and performed by Anais Alexandra Tekerian, is the story of a young woman named Anna and her unique relationship to the people she loves and the village she hopes to protect. Set in a nondescript older time, Anna is in love with the townie, George, but opts to marry the rich and stable man, Earl. Earl works in the city, and helps to build a tower next to the water in the small village where Anna comes from. The tower seems to be causing a mysterious illness in the river. So, Anna must wrestle with the life decisions she made, and come to grips with the fact that some things are out of her control.
What makes this production work so well is its simplicity. Tekerian and director-artist Kevork Mourad create a unique and stark platform for the story to unfold. With just one chair and a white screen as a backdrop, Mourad is able to craft an environment with real time drawings and an interactive two-dimensional set. Likewise, Tekerian as a performer carries the show with excellent moment to moment storytelling and loose physicality. My favorite moments in the show are when Anna interacts with this two-dimensional moving set, which on paper must have been a technical juggernaut, but in reality is executed with ease and flawlessness.
This is a story of regret and guilt, and I think these two do an excellent job of constructing its simplicity while maintaining its poetic complexity. I do not want to give too much away, but there are some very smart writing moments in this show, and, as stated before, an interactive set that is one of the "coolest" things I have ever seen. I really admired the minimalism of this production. It really was a perfect concoction for FringeNYC. Clocking in at fifty minutes in length, I was very pleased with its flavorsome results.
