![]() ![]() She said a crucial point of the play is that looking past the issues that swirl around Chris and Adiel, “you can’t deny the love they feel for each other. ![]() “We don’t talk about the law in the play,” Barnes said, but her character and Chris are well aware of the hazards for anyone on the LGBT community: “You could be jailed for life, or killed – or beaten or terrorized.” The bill that passed in December 2013 replaced that draconian measure with sentences of life imprisonment. The bill, desai said, was originally referred to as the “Kill the Gays bill” due to clauses in the original version of the law that subjected gays to the death penalty. Part two of “Cardboard Piano” unfolds against the backdrop of the country’s legislating a bill known as the Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2014. Playwright Jung said in a published interview that religion “can do two opposite things – it can destroy, hurt, and be an instigator of violence, but it can also be the only thing capable of controlling that violence.”Īnother topic is Uganda’s hostility toward alternative lifestyles. “It’s relevant to so many issues we face in the world today.” She “chased the rights for two years,” determined to bring the play to Long Beach. When desai first saw “Cardboard Piano” at the 2016 Humana Festival of New American Plays, its way of examining the religious and cultural roots of intolerance “really hit me, it was so powerful and touching.” ![]() Suffice it to say that “a story told by one of the characters during the play explains what the title means.” This preference even extends to Jung’s choice to label the play’s two segments as “Part One” and “Part Two” as opposed to the more traditional “Act One” and “Act Two.”Īlong similar lines, desai said even revealing the meaning of the play’s unusual title would be a spoiler. When it comes to providing plot details to reporters, Barnes and desai are understandably circumspect, keeping mum to avoid revealing any spoilers. On the eve of the millennium – New Year’s Eve, 1999 – we meet two young ladies, one white, one black, who have fallen in love: Chris (Blaize), a 16-year-old American whose father is a missionary pastor in Uganda, and Adiel (Barnes), a 16-year-old local girl.īarnes said the two “are planning a wedding night to seal our love – but the war around us is closing in.”Ĭhild soldiers are a commonplace occurrence throughout war-torn Uganda, and Barnes said when this one discovers the girls are romantically involved, “all hell breaks loose and our secret is threatened.” Local audiences will have the chance to see the Los Angeles-area premiere of Hansol Jung’s 2016 play when it arrives at International City Theatre in downtown Long Beach on Friday, May 4.ĭirected by caryn desai, “Cardboard Piano” stars Dashawn “Dash” Barnes, Allison Blaize, Jojo Nwoko and Demetrius Hodges. Combine the two and the tension and conflict can be explosive.Ĭombustible drama is the apparent goal, then, of a new play with the unlikely title of “Cardboard Piano,” a love story set in a Northern Uganda village disrupted by war and violence. Love and war are two of the most reliable subjects for generating dramatic scenarios. ![]()
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