The most creative of artists know that the stage is a place of limitless potential. For Sanctuary City, it’s a chance to push the concept of time into new corners. With a small, bare setting of lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling and a backdrop covered in immigration flyers, it follows the lives of two characters over several decades. The only catch is that some scenes barely exist, finding conversations sliced into repetitive flows that connect the years together and find progression in slight inflection. It’s a story that explores the small ways things change (or don’t) and how they can take a toll on identity.
Majority of the one act play is done with two actors in conversation with each other. As if forming a Pavlovian response, the lightbulbs flicker on and off as scene transitions. Sometimes they are standing, others lying in a pretend bed in an apartment. While the concept of time passing is understood, it’s hard to fully comprehend what these segments stand for. They’re ditching school and discussing citizenship. Later on, they become worried about life in east coast America following 9/11. It’s clear that they love each other, but this isn’t an easy relationship to process. In fact, it seems at times a bit too interrogative at times.
While it works as a tool for conveying a larger world, the intent of answering a Q&A becomes clearer. It’s more than a lazy stage gimmick. Instead, it’s getting to the heart of why their love rarely feels sincere or even in sync. Without spoiling the latter half, it’s the emotional crux that ties into a different kind of sanctuary city. It’s one of feeling safe, but also being welcomed to express oneself as they would wish. It’s a clash of artifice and truth that restrains greater intimacy from taking root, and it helps to explain how the setting becomes suffocating in spite of its perceptive expansiveness and limitless potential.
The cast does the most to make the material flow smoothly. Along with the constant timeline jumping, there are often scenes that require physical transitions across the stage. The ability to make these moments land is crucial to the story’s tension, and it mostly lands. If there’s one conflict to the show’s overall success, it’s that the momentum shifts from a fragmented, brisk-paced past to the “present” in a way that presents its themes a bit too clearly. These aren’t poorly contrasted with what came before, but the execution turns into something a bit too deliberate, highlighting the points in obvious language that draws away from the action. There’s still a redemptive emotional crux to compensate, but even that misses sometimes.
As far as proving the potential of theater, The Chance Theater’s production of Sanctuary City is invigorating and welcomed. It has enough heart to make the high points worth seeking out. There’s even room for a surprising amount of interpretation within the ambiguous structure. However, its artfulness loses steam after a while and its finale, while providing an affecting message, seems like a different show. Maybe it works for some because of how study and tone interlock, but for others, it could be seen as too on the nose. Still, in an age where America is questioning its own citizenry, this is a show with some vitality and a conversation reaching for more than the same old soapbox. It may fall flat at times, but it still has enough worth to persuade any audience willing to give it a try.
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