“Patel’s Charu is perfect...Charu is comic and reckless, selfish and decent, myopic and real. It’s an exhilarating performance, a work of actorly alchemy.”
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3/5 Stars...Under Awoye Timpo's uncharacteristically unfocused direction, Elyria takes a while to find its rhythm in the exposition-heavy yet confusing first act, which builds to a telegraphed reveal. Act II is more engaging intellectually, if not emotionally, as Purohit unpacks the baggage that all immigrants schlep with them. But by then we’re not wholly invested in the contents."
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“Awoye Timpo’s fluid production is not to be missed, and its ghosts will haunt you after the lights go down.”
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“Shagginess and confusion aside, the production boasts a few fine performances...But that's not enough to recommend ‘Elyria,’ which struggles to find a cohesive plot to put flesh on the bones. It is an ambitious attempt, but ultimately experimental theatrics get in the way of a potentially good story.”
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Ambition is a great thing in a playwright but, in the case of Elyria, Deepa Purohit's reach exceeds her grasp; this tangled, multi-generational tale might test the skills of her more accomplished colleagues, and certain aspects of Awoye Timpo's direction don't prove helpful. Purohit certainly has something but wrangling her many characters and imperfectly woven plot strands proves to be something of a struggle. There's enough material here for at least eight episodes on Netflix; condensed, confusingly, into a little over two hours, one strains to keep up.
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“The performances by Nilanjana Bose and Gulshan Mia as the two central characters are solid and engaging, but neither the plot, nor Awoye Timpo's direction, nor the sometimes confusing design elements are able to pull the disparate pieces into a fully realized production. Elyria feels like a work in progress, its potential as yet unmet.”
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What makes "Elyria" intriguing is how its American location affects the hidebound ritual social rules of its Southeast Asian characters. That all the characters emerged from an African diaspora that seemed to have little influence on their ingrained Indian culture only adds to the colorful rendition of an old-hat story.
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“In Deepa Purohit’s ‘Elyria,’ most of the characters are off-balance...Unfortunately, the play itself struggles with the same problem—there are compelling scenes and uniformly winning performances from the cast, yet the show is frustratingly uneven, adding up to less than the sum of its parts.”
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