Review: YOUNG AMERICANS at 1st Stage
A Tale of Two Road Trips: This touching and thought-provoking play about the American immigrant experience runs through April 26 at 1st Stage
There’s a lot of talk these days about what it means to be an American, particularly for those who are immigrants to the United States. Young Americans, the thought-provoking and entertaining play by Lauren Yee currently in performances at 1st Stage, conveys the immigrant experience of self-discovery through the eyes of its three likable characters.
Young Americans tells its story by teetering back and forth between two cross-country road trips, both involving Joe, a bird-loving American immigrant with a green card, but occurring in different time periods. The first road trip portrayed is between Joe and his bride-to-be, Jenny, who met at a party when Joe was back visiting his home country. Their brief meeting led to an agreed-upon arranged marriage. In the first timeline, Joe has picked up his “90-day fiancé” in Washington DC to drive her back to his home in Portland, Oregon.
The other cross-country trip is set twenty years later in 2026, when Joe surprises his and Jenny’s adopted daughter, Lucy, at Dulles Airport to similarly drive her across the country to Portland. Lucy has just completed a junior year abroad in the country in which she was born (though intentionally unnamed, this production portrays Lucy’s home country as located in Southeast Asia).
It takes a little time at the start of the play to figure out who everybody is, but once that is established, the back-and-forth between the two road trips works very well in this production, directed with high energy and affection by Nikki Mirza.
The title Young Americans derives from an iconic David Bowie song from the mid-70’s. In fact, Yee seems to have taken some inspiration from the lyrics of the song in the play’s story. Music figures prominently in the play, as the travelers in both timelines listen to Joe’s mixed tapes comprised of both contemporaneous and classic tunes, including songs from Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake and of course, David Bowie. The music, enhanced by Adam Mendelson’s sound design, lifts the riders’ spirits as well as the audience’s throughout the play.
Each of the road trips is filled with fun stops along the way such as restaurants (IHOP figures prominently), bars and an area outside Four Corners Monument (where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet). Mirza’s experience as a dancer and choreographer, in addition to being a director, brings nice movement and flow to the proceedings.
The three principals, Shawn Sebastion Naar as Joe, Jasmine Joy Brooks as Jenny, and Surasree Das as Lucy, are all excellent. Naar ably moves between the tentative groom-to-be in the earlier timeline to the proud, doting father in the later period. Brooks’ performance is textured, conveying Jenny’s brashness and humor while at the same time fighting her anxiousness of being in a new country and marrying a man she hardly knows. Das’s Lucy is charming as a college student who longs to further her ties with her home country and return to find her birth mother while having real fondness and respect (and occasional embarrassment) for her father. Each of the three characters is searching to find their place in the world as American immigrants with ties to another country. Using an interesting linguistic device, the play further illustrates the immigrant experience. In the earlier timeline, Joe and Jenny speak in English without accents, signifying that they are speaking in their home country language. In the later timeline, Joe speaks English with an accent, highlighting his ongoing status as an immigrant in the U.S.
The set by Debra Kim Sivigny, made up of multi-purpose green and yellow cubes and a wonderful representation of sprawling telephone lines, works quite well, particularly when combined with Sophie Smrcka’s smart scene-setting projections, as well as Emily Pan’s fine mood-setting lighting.
The play has an emotional flashback scene between Jenny and Lucy where Jenny returns to Joe’s bird shop years after abandoning Joe and Lucy. The scene makes us aware that we know very little about the relationship between Jenny and Lucy and their residual feelings after many years. I would have liked to have seen more scenes between the two, recognizing that the core of the play is the two road trips. Such scenes would have provided a third side to a compelling family triangle.
Still, there are plenty of delights to behold in the two road trips that highlight some of the somberness of the immigrant experience amidst lively adventures. Jenny starts the play by observing that as an immigrant, “you will never be happy here, but you will wonder.” While Joe, Jenny and Lucy may never find complete happiness in America, their journeys (both in life and on the road) are still filled with music, laughs, warmth and self-discovery. And after all, what is really more American than the desire to find one’s individual identity.
Young Americans is playing at 1st Stage through April 26. Performance run time is approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes without an intermission.
Photo Credit: Teresa Castracane Photography.
.jpg?format=auto&width=1400 "Review: YOUNG AMERICANS at 1st Stage")
Reader Reviews
Videos