Rita Felciano | San Francisco Bay Guardian Calendar review | September 2007

Part of Intersection for the Arts' yearlong series of work "The Prison Project," Erika Chong Shuch's hour-long piece thankfully doesn't attempt a sociocritical commentary on incarceration. Instead, it keeps the dramatic focus on the fate of two individuals, lovers both separated and "imprisoned" by events. In this piece collaboratively created by the members of the Erika Chong Shuch Performance Project, dancer Jennifer Chien becomes another voice for the convict's lover, while Dwayne Calizo, Tommy Shephard, and Danny Wolohan take turns stepping into the shadowy role of the prisoner, who throughout is presented through Chong Shuch's eyes. She imagines him half mad and locked in a dungeon, the obligatory mouse included. The authenticity of her character's anger, pain, and desperation reverberates with a truth that is both fragile and titanium clad. And there is just that touch of sentimentality, a bit of brittleness about her left-behind lover's dreams, that makes her character all the more human. It's quite an achievement and quite a contrast to the man we encounter in the letters, who undergoes a process of redemption: these two perspectives need to be brought into closer proximity somehow. The vocal numbers (by Allen Willner) are excellent throughout. No doubt the piece will undergo tightening, as some of it is unnecessarily repetitious. The choreography is weak, but Chong Shuch has found her voice as a writer. See also "Cell Mates." (Felciano)

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