By Eric George Tauber
SAN DIEGO — Welcome to the home of the Chinyaramwira family. Scenic Designer Walt Spangler invites us into a warm dwelling with rich, dark woods, tastefully furnished. Like most immigrant families, they communicate in two languages, English and their native Shona, in the same conversation. Like all families, they laugh and bicker, bonding even as they take each other for granted.
“I can’t wait until you have children and they want all sorts of answers from you.”
Their American-born daughter, Nyasha (Olivia Washington), has just returned from her first pilgrimage to the old country, Zimbabwe. Still in her pajamas, Nyasha is flighty and feisty, the artistic rebel in the family. Big sister Tendi (Zakiya Young) is an ambitious, successful lawyer and, at thirty-four, finally getting married.
Her groom Chris (Lucas Hall), is “a little white boy from Minnetonka.” They’re fine with that. Mama just doesn’t approve of that “happy-clappy church” they go to. Cherene Snow plays the mother, Marvelous, as a force to be reckoned with. A refugee from a war-torn country, she has been through a lot. Marvelous and Tendi face off like two bulls when they disagree. Danny Johnson as the dad is like a buoy, bobbing quietly as the storms rage around him. But deep down, there’s a storm brewing beneath his calm.
The wrench thrown into the wedding plans comes with Auntie Annie’s arrival from Zimbabwe, to the consternation of Marvelous. She has come to officiate a traditional roora ceremony in which the groom’s family negotiates the bride’s price. It’s traditionally paid in livestock, but she’ll take a money order. Chris calls on his younger brother, Brad to act as munya’i (negotiator).
Anthony Comis, as Brad, is a hoot. Free-wheeling and far less accomplished than his big brother, they maintain a loving, yet complicated rivalry. The younger siblings of the happy couple, Brad and Nyasha have a shall-we-say “awkward” introduction, but then the chemistry starts cooking.
If Marvelous is a storm, Auntie Annie (Wandachristine) is a mountain, great and unyielding. It pains her that her family lives abroad with no plans to return. She pines eloquently about the loss of language and culture through assimilation and intermarriage. The master of this roora ceremony, she insists that every detail be done by the book -which the white guys haven’t read. In their defense, it’s a lot to learn on the fly. But Annie possesses the power to make them follow it.
Even having the roora ceremony is controversial. Is it compatible with their Christian beliefs or a pagan relic of their past? Is the bride being bought like property, or is the groom showing how greatly he values her? It’s a dilemma many of us can identify with. How Jewish should our weddings be? We can keep the chuppah and break the glass, but should the bride still wear an opaque veil? As to the bride price, it’s in the Ketuba. I used to tease my wife about how many goats and chickens I had to give her father, low-balling him down from a camel.
The story takes a very dramatic turn when life-changing secrets long kept in the dark are brought to light. Kudos to Director Edward Torres who conducts diction like opera. Monologues are as expressive as arias while disagreements crescendo into cadenzas of yelling followed by tense stillness. And hats off to Playwright Danai Gurira for giving us a family that is both exotic and relatable, conflicts that are both far away and close to home.
Familiar is playing at the Old Globe through March 3.
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Tauber is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts. He may be contacted via eric.tauber@sdjewishworld.com
Wonderful review of Familiar. I, too, enjoyed this show, particularly because Emma Pasarow, a recent
graduate of Wesleyan College, was invited by her Theater Arts professor, Ed Torres, to be his assistant director. Emma stayed at my daughter’s house during the rehearsal period and I got to hear about some of the challenges and triumphs of producing this fine work. Emma is directing a play of her own in Los
Angeles and I predict we will be hearing her name as director at major theaters throughout the country,
one of these days.