Anon(ymous) Explores Cultural Icons in Ultra Theatrical Approach

Watch for the full review and more photos from “Anon(ymous)” in a few days!

“Where I come from, there was a war that lasted so long, people forgot what they were fighting for,” says Anon, the titular character of Naomi Iizuka’s “Anon(ymous),” the Harker Conservatory’s 2013 fall play. Lost in the United States, Anon is an undocumented refugee without a name, searching for his mother. She’s trapped at a run-down sweatshop, wooed by its slimy owner, whom she has promised to marry once she completes a shroud for her presumed-dead child.

Anon wanders across America, from the beach house of a wealthy congressman to the kitchen of a drunken cannibal with an operatic songbird. Along the way, he frolics in the ocean with a goddess, races through sewage tunnels past afflicted drug addicts, and crashes a vehicle of trafficked people. His adventures are told in a theatrical style that borrows from traditions from around the world; a Bollywood dance number welcomes Anon to a friendly Indian restaurant and Balinese shadow puppetry conveys a flashback of Anon and his mother. With an ultra-theatrical approach, the ensemble brings to life a powerful rendition of this present-day retelling of Homer’s “Odyssey.”

November 5, 2013Tags: Featured Story, Performing Arts, toppa