Theater Review: New York Theater Workshop

Martyna Majok’s Sanctuary City Premiered 2021 at New York Theater Workshop.

New York Theatre Workshop: Sanctuary City

“ I have rarely seen a play that so effectively describes the way external forces- in this case immigration policies in the United States- distort the inner lives of actual humans.”
-The New York Times

Martyna Majok’s Sanctuary City recreates the sense that there is an external pressure, for an Alien which files for permanent residence in the US. The societal scope interjects on cultural differences from the very beginning, and the distortion of self awareness showed the actors disappearing and reappearing, showing the trauma of separation. A separation in many ways, but by the psyche, biased judgement of self, belonging, and materialized in a final interview process. Sanctuary City felt real, sending shivers down to the bone. It resembled an intercultural relationship under these external pressures. It reassured everything that my wife and I were feeling, and that the governed prejudices and with an external force is much more than the human psyche can convey.

A personal reflection on immigration processes in the U.S through the eyes of the U.S citizen. I left the theater trembling, tears about to burst. It was the interlude, and I wondered if I really should leave the theater at the thought of continuing this nightmare. I stayed to see how the marriage on stage transposed differently, but still, a similar effect triggered my regrets and biggest fears.
-WhySeeArt

Martyna Majok grabbed me on the way out, to thank me for sharing, and she sends her love to anyone who is going through a similar situation. The harsh reality we were living mirrored the representation of a troubled consciousness rooted deep in egotism and nationalism, not to mention $$$$. The path to citizenship by way of relation to a spouse in the U.S tests every cultural milieu. If it does not fit with perceived concepts of marriage, then there is a fear of losing everything.

Context, these kids, they are teenagers, and these adolescents are under immense pressure to prove to themselves and everyone else that they are honest and decent in regards to a bona fide marriage. The play creates a psychological strain through symptoms of their behavior by disappearing into darkness. Naturally circling the questions of identity, truth, love, and proving to yourself that you are who you say you are, means by any cost necessary, make sure its worth the detachment from both, local and the Alien’s homeland society. Its not as simple as people suppose to think about being minority in a foreign country.

Light tremors, relate to repetitive behaviors under pressure to the event of how the certainty of being, existing almost to the extent of vanishing into nothing. Mostly one is not able to completely understand unless you really know the relationship to the land and culture. This burden that distorts our beliefs is lawfully meant to protect a certain group of people. The play was a constant reminder of that adverse affect of nationalism. The moment repeats because this supports that feeling is more real. Challenged ideology questions safety by a form of uncertainty. The only certainty is that they identify with being an immigrant, and even that falls through in the end. With every flash bulb on stage by designer Isabella Byrd, it is not only the change of scene, but the consciousness and unconsciousness, the betrayal and the redemption, in a modern stylized theatre.

They criticize the dream of being in America as the subject as a vague concept in this play. We are asked to follow the dizzy pursuit, denial and selfish desires, where doubt meets memorized and rhetorical intentions. Stylized modern form uses the stage to reevaluate social scripts which creep into our unconscious.

The description of dreamers and false dreams in America described the subject with vague concepts of this play. We are asked to embody the dizzy, trivial pursuit, deny selfish desires, and doubt their intentions. Stylized modern form uses the stage to reevaluate social scripts which creep into our unconscious.

New York Theatre Workshop: Sanctuary City

The turning points, which replay again and again on stage, enter the characters’ hearts. Turning inside out the corporeal, and exposing the external forces that actualize emotional stress. In the second act they adapt to one hard reality, but in the first act time flies by with 48 scenes. Time, in its multiple roles as keeper of all things plays a fear of lost time, even as martial law, and at last abandoned and in darkness. This magnification of their fears came with sheer glimpses through the shadows. We see their strengths positioned in triumphant poses. Multiplying the number in times we see the players standing, then kneeling, and arms crossed. They are facing, back to back, and constantly changing. The factors that made it hard to sleep for them crystalized in two words, bonne nuit!

The ethnicity of whom is unknown to us, but for my story, I study Français, and language has bridged our cultures but the difficulty of understanding it leaves me with only very simple expressions which we are able to share, like “bonne nuit.”

At our worst, my wife and I during the last year used those same two words, “bonne nuit!” It was a familiarity for us as we went off the telephone to sleep, separated, scared, and unsure of our future together.
WhySeeArt

There was a constant reminder of September 11, a national crisis juxtaposing feelings of belonging and detainment by the appearance of a person’s skin. The boy comments that he cannot see his mother off at the airport because security does not allow anyone near the airport gate unless you have a ticket. This explanation of intercultural ménagerie sublimely suggests xenophobia.

We watch all the important moments from birthdays to returning late after work and sharing a meal, they go to their high school Prom, from late night confessions to talking about sharing rent, and let us not forget the proposal. The fragments are spotty answers to major questions an immigration officer might ask. The relationship in the second act feels more like it is under surveillance than a natural occurrence in the life of married couples. The expectations for those in adjustment of status procedures in the U.S is unnatural, and it seems as much, invading as it is unnatural, to act unaltered by its presence.

The bleakness in reconciling different cultural viewpoints on stage resonates with standing strong in one’s own belief system while being flexible to different viewpoints. On stage it created an inner conflict defined by enculturation and ethnocentrism.

Later on, we see one of our protagonists go off to study at University in Boston only to return to a broken relationship back in New York. The fashion of two immigrants with real perseverance and grit actualized in the first act. They appear in the second act as two completely transformed individuals. What they once had in common was no longer how they identified with each other. One identified with being gay, and loving someone else, and the other assimilated better as the resident immigrant in America. Both attempts to heal in one form or another from a history of abuse showed a dilemma largely determined by their own merits.