Is it possible to live in a world without rape? That is the question asked by Intrusion, a one-woman, multi-character play from writer and actor Qurrat Ann Kadwani.

Qurrat Kadwani Photo: Jamal Burke

In Intrusion, we get a vision of a world that has been rape-free for 20 years – until one fateful night when a woman enters an emergency room. At that moment, an already fragile tower begins to crumble, and powerful forces could stand in the way of rebuilding the peace.

That twenty-year lapse gives the topic of sexual assault a clarity and urgency that often isn’t easily available today. Despite this being the era of the ever burgeoning #MeToo movement in a country whose current president once bragged about sexual assault, focused discussion of violence against women seems lost in the shuffle of other shocking news stories told in rapid succession. But in “Intrusion,” there is no time to wait – or to be distracted.

This blank slate is a clever way for Kadwani to convey the complexity of rape and the reaction to it in an organized fashion, while her talent for transforming herself into a wide range of characters of different genders and ages conveys just how multi-faceted and massively affecting the topic can be.

This is also a play of ideas, plenty of shocking facts and logic thrown in, but thanks to Kadwani’s talent, there is a momentum that creates a larger story with memorable and surprising characters in hard-hitting moments.

After opening as an activist and narrator, Kadwani transforms herself into an ambitious broadcast reporter who has to convince her bosses that she can cover the rape in an entertaining way, “like a documentary,” because somehow, the story of the rape itself isn’t good enough for television. This is one of several characters throughout the play, as in real life, whose self interest and ambition keeps rape from being dealt with as clearly as it is in “Intrusion” itself.

However, Kadwani does not stray too far from the initial idealistic premise that rape could be eradicated. In one vignette, a prosecutor who is so worried about taking on a potentially losing case doesn’t forget to tell the audience that 98 percent of rapists see no jail time, and that this fact does matter more than winning cases. We also meet a politician who, as hypocritical as he is, tells the audience how much rape and domestic violence affect the economy, and how that was part of the impetus for eradicating it in the first place.

It is moments like these that make Intrusion a work that deftly combines idealism and hope with pure logic and reality. It makes one think that it actually is possible to change the world, and while the facts might be brutal, they don’t have to be discouraging if presented in the right manner.

The complex male characters are also oddly sympathetic. Kadwani’s day trader bro character, who, in another nod to our potential future, discusses the ethics of rape in virtual reality, is also himself an atypical victim. We also meet a little boy who is learning about gender equality, and once again, Kadwani reminds us of the purpose of “Intrusion,” that honest discussion is needed if we are to get anywhere.

In the end, the most important character is the person who wants to change the world the way Kadwani does. After presenting all the logic, she doesn’t forget to remind us that it is anger and injustice that truly changes the world.

Intrusion is a rallying cry supported by a solid and thorough lesson. Kadwani’s deeply intelligent and powerful piece is for anyone who not only wants to know why things are the way they are, but where to find a hope among the rubble.

Intrusion is playing at St. Luke’s theater at 308 W. 46^th Street.

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Neha Kashyap

Neha Kashyap is an Indian-born Texan living in New York City. Neha's interest in theater is supported by a love of acting, writing, music and comedy. She enjoys using theater to learn about the diverse cultures and people that make up New York and the world beyond.

Off Broadway

Vineyard’s “Scene Partners” Gets Stuck Between Floors

Published

17 hours ago

December 2, 2023

Ross

“This is exactly how it happened “ we are told, followed by a big wide screen opening that descends upon us, but it does not quite land where it, and our leading lady’s character, most likely intended it too. Finally escaping the 11th floor on a folding chair and faulty pulley system, Meryl Kowalski, as portrayed as only the magnificently gifted Dianne Wiest (Broadway’s All My Sons; “Purple Rose of Cairo“) could, finds flight and falter inside this fascinating exploration of some sort of demented dream. Giving the “correct response“ to abstract questions and assignments, Wiest delivers a befuddled and determined performance that elevates a play that fractures realities every chance it gets. As written with a wild wandering spirit by John J. Caswell, JR. (Wet Brain), the play is an absurdity of utter invigorating complexity, playing with and sometimes delivering itself forward in a fascinating but distancing dementia. Is it a post-traumatic disassociation of epic proportions or a fractured descent into grief and mental illness, played for a laugh or a tug at the heart? Or is it something quite else that was lost on this avid fan of this Oscar-winning actress? And I don’t even know if there is a clear correct answer to this. But that is half the fun in this half-fun exercise in abstractionism and determination.

It’s big on ‘concept’, directed with a strong forward vision by Rachel Chavkin (Broadway’s Hadestown), obviously enjoying the ride and the wandering with glee. The visuals ride and slide in and about, thanks to the incredibly detailed and smooth work of video and projection design by David Bengali (Broadway’s The Thanksgiving Play), lighting designer Alan C. Edwards (Vineyard’s Harry Clarke), and scenic designer Riccardo Hernández (Broadway’s Indecent), giving depth and clarity to this otherwise meander into fractured and fantastical thinking. Supported by clever extravagances by costume designer Brenda Abbandandolo (Broadway’s The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window), the effect is a fevered dive into the mind of a woman beaten down hard to the ground by a now-dead husband whose death has freed her to her desire; her dream and determination to be a big famous movie star, and she’ll point the barrel at anyone who might stand in her way or say otherwise.

Josh Hamilton and Dianne Wiest in Vineyard Theatre’s *Scene Partners.* Photo by Carol Rosegg.

Scene Partners feels anything but safe and secure, as we join Wiest’s 75-year-old widow from the Midwest as she steadily abandons her needy mess of a daughter, played with clever calculations by Kristen Sieh (Broadway’s The Band’s Visit), to jet, train, or sled herself off to Hollywood to become a big gloriously famous movie star even before her now-dead violent abusive husband has been buried six feet under. The framing is slanted, with efforts to keep us off balance. Finding a flavor in its madness and splitting. The name of Wiest’s woman is Meryl Kowalski, and she’s not to be ignored. She is told quite clearly and quickly that she must change it if she really wants to be an actress, as that first name of hers has already been taken by that other, already famous and award-winning actress with the same first name that we all know and love. But this Meryl holds firm, inside and out of her first acting class somewhere out there in Los Angeles. It’s there, when confronted by her over-the-top acting teacher, played with wild abandonment by the perfect Josh Hamilton (Broadway’s The Real Thing), that she reveals another level of strong abstractionism. This particularly twisted Meryl’s dead husband was named Stanley Kowalski, and her Streetcar husband made Tennessee Williams’s character seem like quite the gentle nice guy.

At this point, the play stands shakily in some abstract parallels that are fun, clever, complicated, and a bit distancing, playing with fragments of trauma and grief that don’t fully come together. It pulls and pushes at about the same level of conflicted engagement, until Johanna Day (Broadway/MTC’s How I Learned to Drive) as Meryl’s half-sister comes into play, shifting the formula with a centered grounding that makes us sit back and question what’s really going on. When a doctor also enters the picture, played well by Eric Berryman (RT’s Primary Trust), a medical diagnosis once again adds a different framework that could alter the whole process. Where are we with these two half-sisters and their shared knowledge of a non-collaborated trauma of abuse? Especially after a (pre-recorded) interview with a very well-positioned Sieh asking pertinent questions that illicit praise from Hamilton’s pompous character and a disappearing act of a half-sister who might never been. It plays with the head, in both an engaging and disassociating manner that works, and doesn’t.

Johanna Day and Dianne Wiest in Vineyard Theatre’s Scene Partners. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

Scene Partners doesn’t play easy with our unpacking, leading us down blind endless alleyways decorated with an abundance of movie imagery that either leads us to brick walls or bottomless pits to fall into. Wiest’s Meryl has necessarily immersed herself in these vintage cinematic panoramas, probably to unconsciously avoid the abusive reality she found herself trapped in, and in that trauma response, Wiest has found the perfect embodiment for Mrs. Kowalski, bringing feisty and forceful complexities to the forefront as she shuffles and stabs herself into frame. And even if it doesn’t, in the end, add up to much, this Vineyard Theatre production is flavorful in its twisted construction and projections. The “Doctor Zhivago” impressions and pop-culture references overwhelm, not just our heroine, but also our connections to emotional clarity and authenticity, leaving us hanging halfway down and in between floors waiting for something to fully make an impact.

Dianne Wiest in Vineyard Theatre’s *Scene Partners.* Photo by Carol Rosegg.

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Off Broadway

Make Me Gorgeous Tells Of One Man’s Authenticity

Published

17 hours ago

December 2, 2023

Suzanna Bowling

Make Me Gorgeous! playing at Playhouse 46 in a nut shell is about the life and times of LGBTQ+ trailblazer Kenneth Marlow. Embodying Marlow is Wade McCollum, who tells us how he was born in 1926 in Des Moines, Iowa, and how he became a hustler, private hairdresser, stripped in mob-controlled nightclubs, became a female impersonator, a madam of a gay prostitution ring, until in the 70’s when he became Kate, throwing a “Ball to End all Balls” to fund gender-affirming surgery. We learn how she documented her life in books. In between he was a private in the U.S. Army; a Christian missionary; a mortuary cosmetologist and a newspaper columnist.