Pera Palas

Pera Palas by Sinan Unel
Directed by Ruth Willis

A cast of ten actors portray more than 20 roles in three timelines that intersect and weave around the clash of cultures, family connections, love, loss, and the reality of never knowing how one's life will turn out.

Dates: April 24 through May 10. Shows are Thurs-Sats at 8pm, Sunday matinees at 2 for the first two weekends Location: 2835 Smallman St in the Strip. (If you know where The Foundry Ale Works/Spaghetti Warehouse/Harp & Fiddle are you can find us.) Go down Smallman to 29th, hang a left, make a left into the alley behind the buildings and our parking lot is there (next to the Foundry Ale Works parking lot's far end though you can't cut through.) Parking is free.

Tickets: $15

Reservations: 412-257-4056
(you do not have to pay in advance or over the phone. Make your reservation and pay upon arrival.)

"Pera Palas - Sinan Unel's Turkish-Western Culture Clash"
by Christopher Arnott, New Haven Advocate - February 1, 2002

NEW HAVEN -- Sinan Unel's intricate, interlocking exploration of Turkish-Western relations throughout the 20th century is refreshing, human and forthright, both in its writing and in its largely low-key, high-energy Long Wharf presentation.

The main location of the play's many scenes, some of which overlap onstage at the same time, is the Pera Palas hotel, a luxury stopover for passengers on the Orient Express rail route. Essentially, Pera Palas is the story of three generations of couplings in a central Turkish-rooted family. The relationships illustrate the traditions, turbulence and tastes of three distinct eras:

• 1918-24, when post-war Turkey was being occupied by, among other entities, the British empire, represented here by a well-intentioned busybody feminist who hangs out at an old-fashioned harem;
• 1952-53, when Turkey joined NATO and American Cold War bluster and big business infected the country, which Unel dramatizes through social-climbing and crass sexism;
• and the mid-1990s, a time of political unrest, social revolution, and fondness for fading traditions, shown here through the eyes of gay tourists, liberated women and entrenched old families.

Costumes and sets are extravagant, but the stage is bare and the actors carry the play's tempo and tone. The production is a marvel of multi-casting, with 10 performers divvying up around two dozen characters. Only one cast member, Paul Anthony Stewart, is stuck with a single role, but while his character is at the tail end of the lineage explored here, he's not the most central, nor indeed the most interesting, character. There's plenty of cross-gender and non-ageist role-sharing among the ensemble; I particular admired the heavy-shouldered, straight-backed stance affected by women playing men. The level of consistency and continuity in such frequent transformations is a credit to the cast, of course, but also to the surehanded direction and traffic control skills of Steven Williford, who's helped Unel shepherd Pera Palas through workshops and previous productions.

The Turkish cultural details may be lightweight at times--the food can give Americans diarrhea, we're constantly reminded--and a generic son-hates-dad rant in the second half throws off Unel's careful balance of personal traumas and defining cultural moments. In fact, much of the second half of the show deals in excesses--loud arguments, expulsions, death. The audience gets positively giddy, hooting at minor comical asides and gasping at every slapped face. The elder audience members, those with grown children, especially seem to enjoy themselves, and it's in the area of tenuous family relations that the playwright draws his firmest links between the two cultures.