Word: mama
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...20th century or that of the Stone Age. While some insurgents fought government troops with Kalashnikov rifles, many others went into battle bare chested and armed with nothing more than sticks and rocks. These warriors were following the orders of a 27-year-old self-styled "priestess" known as Mama Alice, who was trying to overthrow the government of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni with an odd mixture of Christian theology and African witchcraft. Believers in her Holy Spirit Movement, she told followers, could ward off enemy bullets by coating themselves with the oil of a local tree and could...
...play opens, Mattie ("Sis") Eng (Janet Choi) returns to her home after 14 years of absence while on a promotional tour for her new Mama Fu Fu's chinese cookbook. To her dismay, one of her brothers is wasting his time running "Chinatown Tour'n'Travoo" tours, while the other has turned into a gangster. Her father (Carlton Sagara), on the verge of death after years of illness, has finally brought his first wife "China Mama" (Lena Chen) over to the United States. She is not enthusiastically received by number two wife or the children. To add to the chaos...
...minimal (and ill-handled), and Shin focuses on his actors instead of their surroundings. This is probably a wise decision given the limitations of the Lowell House Junior Common Room. Shin does wonders with costumes. He has turned three teenagers into very convincing looking ma, pa, and China Mama, using hairstyle and clothing to age the young faces...
...best of the bunch are the old people. As Mama, Chungjoon Lee struts across the stage as a matriarch, conversing cutely with her family. And Sagara's ingenious accent and ability to dotter make the character of the grumpy old Chinatown boss. Chen in the silent role of China Mama manages to make her presence felt at the play's tensest moments...
...most eccentric performance is turned in by Anne Ramsey as Umstetter's mother. She's a parody of the faithful, loving Hollywood mother and she looks like the result of a genetic experiment in which Mama Leone's genes were spliced with a munchkin...