By Mimi Pollack
SAN DIEGO — As a Jew who studies Tibetan Buddhism, it was with great interest that I went to see well-known playwright Sarah Ruhl’s play, The Oldest Boy, at the Lyceum Theater, directed by venerable Sam Woodhouse.
I also probably saw the play with different eyes than most because I actually met a boy whose story was very similar. The play deals with the true story of an American woman, married to a Tibetan man, whose son is recognized as a Tulku or the reincarnation of a great Buddhist Rinpoche or teacher. The play is about the struggle between faith and family and the understandable grief the mother feels as she is torn between keeping her son, or sending him off at the age of three to live with the monks in Dharamsala, India, so he can be enthroned and trained. In the end, she and her husband go with the boy to India, and allow him to follow the destiny the dedicated monks envision for him. Perhaps the blow is softened a little by the fact that she has another child in India and eventually the baby girl and her parents return to Boston.
In 2001, I traveled to Mundgod, India with Land of Compassion Buddha to study with HH the Dalai Lama. Mundgod is home to a magnificent temple and school of Buddhist monks and the Tibetan Buddhist refugee camps. It was there that I met a young teen age monk from Victorville, California, who had also been recognized when he was five as the reincarnation of a great teacher. His Tibetan parents sent him to India to study. By the time, I met him, he was on his way to becoming a great lama and teacher, but he still had a little bit of California boy left in him. He liked practicing his English with me and asked me to bring him back comic books when I returned which I hope to do one day.
The play made me think of him and his parents. As a longtime ESL teacher, the play also made me think of the conflict in cultures. The mother is a former academic, lapsed Catholic woman who struggles to practice Buddhism. She must confront her husband’s culture and her boy’s destiny.
The play is well acted and the way they choose to represent the boy is very clever. The Tibetan Buddhist settings, songs, rituals, and dances are well done and add flair to a play that can sometimes be a little slow. All the actors give good performances, but my favorite is veteran Tibetan actor, Tsering Dorjee Bawa [he was in the movie Himalaya] who portrays the little boy in a wonderful and expressive way. He will be working on a film in San Francisco called Finding Tenzin and it is based on the little boy in the play for release sometime in 2016. He has his own website: www.tseringbawa.com
Unfortunately, the play ends its run in San Diego on December 6th. I wish it could have continued longer as it is well worth seeing.
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Pollack is a freelance writer and ESL teacher. She may be contacted via mimi.pollack@sdjewishworld.com