What do we mean by “forgiveness” or “redemption”? Prodigal, written and directed by Paolo Santalucia currently being presented by the Howland Company at Crow’s Theatre asks us to consider just that. It’s a curiously structured play. On one level it’s a black comedy about a seriously dysfunctional elite family but there’s an intro to each act in which a preacher exegises on the Parable of the Prodigal Son and the Parable of the Lost Sheep. We are invited to compare the characters we are about to see with the dramatic personae of Christ’s teaching. But are they really comparable?”
Over 200,000 women from across Asia were conscripted into sexual slavery by the Japanese army in WW2. They were euphemistically described as “comfort women”. In 2009 playwright Diana Tso met some of the survivors, heard their stories and wrote a play based on their testimony. The result was Comfort, currently playing at the Aki Studio in a production directed by William Yong with music by Constantin Caravassilis.
operaramblings 