Isabel (Haruna Lee) and Harriet (Ni-Ni) are a couple—or so it seems.
Following its co-commission of Public Obscenities, a finalist for this year’s Pulitzer Prize in Drama, NAATCO—the National Asian American Theatre Company—leans even more heavily into the theme of gender identity with its new production Isabel, an adventurous but impenetrable 70-minute drama by Reid Tang.
Matt (Sagan Chen) has a personal relationship with their backpack, which is named Loaves.
Tang and director Kedian Keohan are both trans, as is one of Isabel’s stars, Ni-Ni. All three actors in the show, along with the playwright, director and several members of the production team, use the pronoun “they.” Cast member Sagan Chen, who identifies as gender-fluid and queer, lists “they/he/she” in the program.
Yet this authentic representation does not produce a work offering a greater understanding of trans identity or deep insights into trans individuals, perhaps by design of the deliberately obfuscating author. The play has the basic outline of a plot, and a bunch of things—an anthropomorphized backpack and a staircase in the middle of the woods, to name two—whose symbolism never quite becomes clear.
The story revolves around Matt (played by Chen) and their sibling (Ni-Ni), named Harriet but male-presenting. Matt just moved to a rundown old house in the forest, having given up work and sex and wishing to be “unreachable by the tendrils of the Internet.” In the first scene, Harriet pays a visit with their partner Isabel (portrayed by Haruna Lee).
Subsequent scenes appear to take place earlier, eventually going back to Matt and Harriet in their childhood home, plotting to run away. Isabel, or somebody who looks just like them, turns out to be the forest ranger sent to search for the missing teens. Getting identifying information from their mother, the ranger notes that Matt is “17, nearly 18—and possibly also like 27 going on 28” while Harriet is “13 going on 14. Might be 23 going on 24, depending.”
“It isn’t easy to make sense of what’s going on, or has gone on, in ‘Isabel.’”
Thus, time is fungible in Isabel. So, too, are such concepts as inanimateness and motivation. “We’re just passing through on our way to—I don’t know yet. We won’t know where it is until we get there,” Harriet tells Matt.
And then there’s the question of why the play is named after Isabel. The character of Harriet’s partner seems secondary to the siblings. But is that who (or what) Isabel actually is? “I named you. Remember?” Matt says to Isabel. Later, speaking to Isabel about the backpack called Loaves, Matt says: “When Loaves was in a similar situation concerning you, she never—well, not never … she got through it, and she was there for you. You know?”
You know? Possibly not. It isn’t easy to make sense of what’s going on, or has gone on, in Isabel. I mean, Matt does treat that backpack like it’s a person. And those staircases located throughout the forest—”the ones that go nowhere, just hang in the air”—figure prominently in the story.
If the play is about something, it’s the idea of being rejected by your family, having to find your own way forward, taking risks to find what brings you contentment. Which makes it all a pretty convoluted way to say “Live your truth.” Tang has added the trappings of a horror movie: a creepy, remotely located big house; getting lost in the woods; weird things growing on someone’s body; groaning, creaking noises; lots and lots of fog.
Chen and Lee in Isabel. Photographs by Marcus Middleton.
While Isabel may have been conceived as—or would be seen by some audience members as—a clever use of time-shifting and horror tropes to make a statement about gender nonconformity, all the surrealities and its not-always-engaging dialogue make it a wearisome muddle.
It gets a fine-looking production, though. The plot may be barely discernible, but the set is fully and precisely realized, with the sparse, crummy furnishings and tattered walls one might expect in Matt’s house (perhaps the walls of the 110-year-old Lower East Side theater were already in that condition?) and a long staircase with banisters and carpet, just as the script repeatedly references. It’s another excellent creation by the Tony-nominated scenic design collective dots. Tei Blow’s sound design and Barbara Samuels’ lighting also do much to set the scene, while Hahnji Jang’s costumes include a memorably odd getup on Isabel and a surprising outfit for Harriet in a later scene.
Isabel is definitely extraordinary as an act of visibility and storytelling by trans/nonbinary/queer theater artists. The story itself, however, is too perplexing to endear.
Isabel runs through July 6 at Abrons Arts Center (466 Grand St.). Performances are at 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday, with matinees at 3 p.m. Friday and Saturday. For tickets and more information, visit naatco.org.
Playwright: Reid Tang
Director: Kedian Keohan
Sets: dots
Costumes: Hahnji Jang
Lighting: Barbara Samuels
Sound: Tei Blow
