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| Rebecca Hart in O Guru Guru Guru. Photo by Alan Simons. |
Oh Guru Guru Guru, or why I can’t go to Yoga
class with you
By Mallory Avidon
Directed by Lila Neugebauer
Review by Rachel White
Entire contents are copyright © 2013 Rachel White.
All rights reserved.
I’m not a big fan of lectures in the theater as a
device, even a poetic emotionally charged lecture like the one that opened Oh Guru Guru Guru the other night at the
Humana Festival. The lecture feels long, and it is long; and there is no
program to assure you, the audience, that no, this is not a one-woman lecture
about a woman’s childhood adventures in yoga. I am here to assure you: it’s
worth it. Just relax. Lila’s lecture is about why she can’t go to Yoga class
with you (me, us). Lila grew up immersed in the world of Yoga in an ashram in
India. Her parents were Yogis. She loved Yoga, and she wanted to be like Gurumayi,
the spiritual leader of the Siddha Yoga path. The lecture is peppered with
stories about her life in the ashram.
Then the stage opens on a yoga session in India
where the women wear beautifully colorful saris and chant to sitar music. The
audience is invited to remove their shoes and sit on the stage, where they are taken
through the yoga process led by a confident calm instructor. Young women share
the lessons they have learned from the guru. The audience becomes a part of the
session in which Lila is in attendance. There is a performance of shadow
puppets. The visuals of the piece are theatrical and out of the ordinary. Everything
seems a little too nice, however – a little too separated from the real world to
feel genuine.
Then, the set shifts again, to the movie set of Eat, Pray, Love, a Julia Roberts film. Lila
is an extra in the film and meets Ms. Roberts and admits to an existential
crisis. She no longer believes in the things she was taught as a child, but she
doesn’t really feel she has anything else.
The shape of this play is what’s unique and cool
about it. It makes sharp turns, without stopping to explain itself. It’s like
the unfolding of a mural, frame by frame, as it doesn’t really make sense as a
whole until that last piece is revealed. I wish I had trusted the author a
little more. I found myself slightly uneasy, as I couldn’t quite grasp the
direction of the piece. Maybe that was the job of the author, or maybe not. What
comes full circle, however, is surprising and lovely and very modern in its
sensibilities. Rebecca Hart as Lila is deceptively vulnerable while appearing at
first confidently together. She does such a graceful salute to the sun for
Julia Roberts, in one particular moment, that I’m still thinking about it two
days later.
The themes of Mallory Avidon’s play are simple and
universal: a young woman has become disillusioned with her heroes and her
passions, and so has to find a way to move forward. There is a deeply felt
irony in the story of a childhood spent searching for enlightenment only to
emerge into adulthood in a state of complete confusion. Most of us arrive there
with no experience in Yoga to speak of. What was the point, Lila wonders? If
her heroes too must fall so hard, where does that leave her?
This play is fun, modern, but not alienating. It's experiential,
but in the best sense. And there is tea in the lobby at the end after you put
your shoes back on.
Oh Guru Guru
Guru, or why I don’t want to go to yoga class with you
Part of the 37th Humana Festival of New American Plays
March 22-April 7, 2013
Actors Theatre of
Louisville
Victor Jory Theatre
316 West Main Street
Louisville, KY 40202
(502) 584-1205
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