“Tango”

[rating=3] When one sees a title like “Tango”, one might anticipate Spanish themes, even music, but in Joel Tan’s  “Tango” we are in fact in Singapore. This is a United States premiere of a play that gets into the customs and what is allowable in another country. Based on the true life experiences of gay couples who have children and the experiences they lived through in Singapore, a country that has zero protection or legal recognition for non-normative families, we get a peek into what might take place ( or did).

Pride Arts is the perfect theater company to bring this story to a Chicago stage, however, the staging may have gone a bit off the deep end. Let me explain. While I thought the piece to be well acted, I felt that the way the staging was set up made for some confusion. The stage is on the floor and has seating on two sides, with the ends being where the actors and props are . When the actors are not “on-stage” so to speak, they are on chairs off-stage, but in full view of the audience. They did a lot of cell phone business to possibly stress the problems that social media can cause, but in doing so, the audience may become distracted and take their concentration off the main characters at the moment.

The story begins with a couple Kenneth ( well played by G. Hao Lee) and Liam (deftly handled by Mike Newquist) , along with their son, Jayden ( Luke Gerdes, making his  Chicago stage debut) meet their friend, Elaine (Carolyn Hu Bradbury) in a restaurant. The server, Poh Lin ( well played by Rainey Song) asks questions about who the parents are to the boy, and when she finds out that the two men are the parents, she goes off on how they are pedophiles. A fight ensues, which ends up being broadcast on the internet.

Kenneth finds that this has caused the doors to a new job closing. Kenneth’s father, Richard ( Cai Yong) is confused about what is taking place and tries to help his grandson, causing even more problems for the family living with him. Poh Lin has a nephew who lives with her and works in the restaurant, His name is Benmin (Oscar Hew) who is about to “come out” and at the age of 30 has signed on to a dating service ( I am pretty sure underground) where he has met Zul (Ronnie Derrick Lyall.

As you can see there are several stories in this play including the fact that visitor Elaine has a female spouse back home and a five year old daughter. This comes out when she meets with Poh Lin to resolve the issues and bring some peace and harmony to the lives of all the characters..

Directed by Carol Ann Tan on a set concept of hers, with lighting by Elliot Hubiak and sound by Valerio Torretta Gardner, I found the production a little hard to follow as it bounced from one part of the stage to another. It was in some ways like watching a pickleball game and at times seemed disjointed. I think the story is worth telling and the acting was well done. There is use of the North Wall for projections so that when Poh Lin speaks in Chinese to her nephew, Benmin, we know what they are saying. The costumes were very sparse and considering that this was over a period of time, no changes, with the exception of Liam who added a great shirt with a 1957 Chevrolet in its pattern. ( I loved the shirt Savana Nix-costumes).

While this play was written to be performed in Singapore, probably to make a point, it can be useful in any country that is facing problems regarding acceptance of LGBTQ equality. I am in hopes that as they run this show, thye will make some changes to clean up some of the loose ends and tighten it so people will learn from the stories being told and learn that once we send the ‘post” on social media, the world takes over!

“Tango” will continue at Pride Arts through June 11th with performances as follows:

Thursdays  7:30 p.m.

Fridays  7:30 p.m.

Saturdays  7:30 p.m.

Sundays  3 p.m.   special Wednesday, June 7th  7:30 p.m.

Run time is 2 hours and 10 minutes with a 10 minute intermission. Act one is much longer than act two.

The theater is located at 4139 N. Broadway- parking can be difficult, so arrive early- you do not want to miss the first scene of this one as it is of great importance.

Tickets  $35  /$30 for seniors and students

for tickets call 773-857-0222 or visit www.pridearts.orghttp://www.pridearts.org

To see what others are saying, visit www.theatreinchicago.com, go to Review Round-Up and click at “Tango”.