Sanctuary City – An Illusion
Sanctuary City: a city whose municipal laws tend to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation or prosecution, despite federal immigration law.
2001. When G. (Sharlene Cruz) bangs on B’s (Jasai Chase-Owens) Newark fire escape window in the middle of the night, he lets her in without questions. The teenage friends know one another from high school and are bound by similar untenable circumstances.
B. and his mother have overstayed their visas by ten years, limiting any activity that might alert the government to their presence. She’s decided to go back home. It’s up to B. whether he’ll accompany her. G.’s mother is waiting for naturalization papers, afraid to leave her abusive husband because she too is undocumented. The girl tells her teachers she walked into a cabinet door or fell downstairs.
We watch the two in brief exchanges punctuated by blackouts and sound as they repeat issues and questions again and again with rat-a-tat-tat delivery, reflecting tension, disorientation and, perhaps, time. Utilized to dramatize alternate realities based on String Theory as in Nick Payne’s Constellations, the method works. Here, it becomes annoying.
B. gives G. a key. She frequently takes refuge with him, sleeping side by side without touching. When G.’s mom receives papers, her underage daughter becomes a de facto citizen. The women move, though mom continues to attract brutes. G. gets into a Boston college on scholarship. She convinces B. to stay and moves in with him. Both have after school jobs.
The plan is to marry, enabling B. to be legally recognized by the U.S. To this end, they begin rehearsing answers to the government questionnaire meant to weed out those not actually in relationships: How did you meet? How long have you been together (photos needed)? What are her/his favorite colors, foods, films…
G. is determined to help B. She visits on holidays. They resume rehearsals.Then she stops coming. Three and a half years later, G. shows up at B.’s door and is met with the understandably dismissive, “thanks for stopping by on your way to your future.” While he remains at the same under the table, low end job, she’s about to graduate. Having wrestled with shared risks of high fines, prison, and deportation, G. has decided to keep her promise. B. no longer trusts her. The presence of a third character, Henry (Austin Smith), adds oil to the fire complicating everything. Anguished lady-or-the-tiger choices must be made.
The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act grants temporary, conditional residency and an abbreviated path to citizenship to young, undocumented immigrants. “Dreamers” are faced with a conservative, mired bureaucracy that haplessly dangles legitimacy like a cat toying with a mouse.
Martyna Majok’s play puts faces on a terrible situation. The piece is empathetic, painful, and unsentimental. Specifics (why does this not apply to naming protagonists?) drive home the plight of hopeful innocents.
Sanctuary City is expertly produced. Successive Directors Rebecca Frecknail and, after an 18 month hiatus, Caitlin Sullivan create an engrossing scenario by coupling precise Morse-code-like choreography in the first part with realism in the second. When the teenagers sleep together, they do so standing up. We see them adjust positioning as they shift in bed. Evocative staging of the prom is a production highlight.
Tom Scutt’s raw set and apt costumes, Isabella Byrd’s startling lighting, and Mikaal Sulaiman’s sound design are unnervingly right. At 100 minutes without intermission (be prepared), the play feels somewhat long.
All three actors are top notch. Knife-like focus that never turns robotic. Silence is full.
An excellent, timely play manifest with pith and skill.
Newark declared itself a Sanctuary City in 2020
Photos by Joan Marcus
Sanctuary City by Martyna Majok
Directed by Rebecca Frecknail
Remount Director- Caitlin Sullivan
Lucille Lortel Theater
121 Christopher Street
Through October 10, 2021
