Word: indra
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...youth, a threatening prospect considering how cloudy and volatile are the thoughts and feelings Terkel assembles. This is understandable. Race itself is an irrational subject, which may be "the American obsession" but is not an American invention. The 3,000-year-old Rig-Veda tells of the Aryan god Indra's hatred for the black-skinned anasya. Han dynasty historians (right for the wrong reasons) believed yellow-haired, green-eyed people evolved from primates. The Babylonian Talmud attributes the blackness of Ham's descendants to Jehovah's curse...
...resolution comes only at the very end, when Indra's daughter reveals the divine wisdom. Man and life and the world are but mirages; living is a cloud that obfuscates the greatest suffering of all--love. Only in that realization lies redemption...
...first of these images involves countless voices from every conceivable corner of the auditorium chanting "Daughter, Daughter." The chant builds up to a feverish crescendo ending upon the entrance of Indra, the God of Heaven (Jonathan Weinberg). "How did you get here?", he asks, to which his innocent daughter replies, "I was carried on a cloud, but it seems to be falling." The "here" that Indra refers to is Earth, the "dark and heaviest world" whose "discontented, thankless" inhabitants speak a language Indra calls "complaint." Indra's daughter does not agree with her father's condemnation of the human race...
Cara Polites, who plays the lead, lends admirable poise and sensitivity to a demanding role. As Indra's daughter, she is taken through myriad images in a dream, a voyage of revelation and discovery on Earth. Canosa uses skillful imagery to convey these scenes. Brightly colored cloths are used repeatedly in stark contrast to the darkness that fills the dream world of the Ex. They portray flowers, knowledge, shelter... Canosa sketches one vivid, transient image after another...
...stage is used imaginatively: there are scenes in which people hang upside down from the ceiling and in which Indra breaks through a whole segment of the audience as he barges in through the door that contains the mysteries of life. Superior coordination between the stage hands and the actors make for wonderful viewing and superb production (Emily Brodsky). In the end, though, it is Canosa who steals the show. His ingenuity, resourcefulness and vision are what make Dream Play a dream...