May 4, 2006
Grim issues of life and privilege at play in ‘Harvest’
“Ripped from the headlines” is a phrase too often breathlessly employed by prime time television dramas. But it’s true of Harvest, the play opening tonight at the Ethnic Cultural Theatre — eerily so.
Written in India by playwright Manjula Madmanabhan and located there in the very near future, Harvest explores the relations between the affluent and the poor, between the First and Third worlds, between those who possess money, power, technology and privilege, and those who do not.
Simply, grimly put, the story revolves around agreements made between affluent residents of the First World to purchase body parts from living donors — badly in need of money and resources — in developing nations, .
“I think it’s definitely a morality play, or a parable,” said Lydia Fort, a recent graduate of the UW’s MFA program in directing. “It confronts how poverty changes people, and how the need for wealth can change their lives.” She said the play centers on “how the West uses others, or uses Third World countries, as resources.”
Those resources, in this science fiction-edged future fantasy, are not clothes or cars, cell phones or computers. They are — as was discovered years back in the old sci-fi thriller Soylent Green — people.
The plot set up thusly: Om Prakash, a young man of little means in India, agrees to sell unspecified organs, through a corporate intermediary, to a rich American woman. The would-be recipient then involves herself in Om’s life with the aim of harvesting the healthiest possible body parts from him.
Playing Om is Ben Gonio, who graduated last May with an MFA from the UW’s Professional Actor Training Program and is now a professional actor with many prestigious credits. Gonio described the play as if through the eyes of his own character. He said, “The play is basically about what happens when a man, a young man who lives in a Third World country is in desperate need to survive and provide for his family.”
Fort said she was drawn to the piece because she has long been a science fiction fan. She said such imagery challenges the stage director, however: “It’s very demanding technically to be able to realize the demands of trying to create science that might not necessarily exist yet,” she said. Among such devices is a type of video receiver whereby the wealthy would-be organ recipient can monitor the donors from afar.
Playing Om’s wife, Jaya, is Beverly Sotelo, a second-year student in the PATP who impressed Fort when the two were doing The Good Woman of Setzuan last winter, but someone she did not previously know well. The actress’ dedication to her performance made an impression on the director.
And while the play is rather dark, there is redemption, too, Fort said. “While it may seem like a gloomy topic, I really am excited about the play because of the commitment of the lead actress. And I am interested and fascinated by (such a piece), where the women play central roles, and stand up and really claim their own power and dignity. I think it’s a remarkable and empowering experience.
And in case you missed some of those headlines that carry stories similar to the heart of Harvest, Fort provides a few suggestions. There’s the Journal of the American Medical Association’s article from Oct. 2, 2002, “Economic and Health Consequences of Selling a Kidney in India.” Or the New York Times’ article about the purchase of an organ from March 26, 2006. Or more recent articles, in that newspaper and elsewhere, about body parts being harvested from the dead.
Harvest plays through May 14 at the Ethnic Cultural Theatre, 3940 Brooklyn Ave. Tickets are $7 for students and $12 for general admission. Call 206-325-6500 or visit only at www.ticketwindowonline.com.
