The Band's Visit Is A Quiet Masterpiece

This is the one. The one I've been waiting for. 

Photo by Matthew Murphy

I can't describe to you how incredibly excited I was to see The Band's Visit last night. I was hooked ever since seeing Katrina Lenk's magnificent performance of "Omar Sharif" at the 2018 Tony Awards (the same night she won best performance by a leading actress in a musical). I wasn't able to see a performance with the original cast in New York City, so I was thrilled to find it coming to Minneapolis as part of the Broadway tours through Hennepin Theater Trust.

Photo by Matthew Murphy

The Band's Visit is quite simple on the surface, telling the story of a small group of Egyptian musicians who get lost on their way to perform for the opening of a new Arab Cultural Center in Israel due to a mix-up of the name of the town they are to visit (they end up in Bet Hatikva, rather than Petah Tikvah). The troupe is stranded with little money and taken in by a cafe owner named Dina, who feeds them and finds homestays for them to pass the night until the next bus to Petah Tikvah will run. Dina immediately connects with the conductor Tewfiq and contemplates a romantic relationship with him as she later gives him a tour of Bet Hatikva, a dream that seems to flourish until withering as she learns his sad past. Haled, a younger member of the band, sneaks out to enjoy a night on the town and ends up counseling a shy young man named Papi in the art of flirting. Simon, an older musician, witnesses a fight and difficult relationship between the husband and wife he is staying with. His music provides a sense of peace to them as they resolve their fight. A boy waits endlessly by a payphone for his girlfriend to call. Much like the nearby sea, life ebbs and flows in Bet Hatikva until the night ends, the band boards their bus to Petah Tikvah, and Dina's life returns to the everyday cycles it always endured.

Photo by Matthew Murphy

There has been a lot of hype about this show (it did win 10 Tony Awards, after all) and I wasn't disappointed. The success of The Band's Visit begins and ends with Chilina Kennedy who is magnificent as Dina. Kennedy has a dynamic voice and sexy, lithe presence that does complete justice to this complex character. James Rana was quietly lovely as the shy and tortured Tewfiq, and his understated performance added real power to this role. Joe Joseph blessed us with a gorgeous voice as Haled, and his smooth stylings provided welcome comedic moments and some beautiful romantic ballads. The musical standout of the show for me may have been Mike Cefalo's unexpected star as the young Telephone Guy, with a haunting solo that rose admirably into chorus to close out the show with "Answer Me." I also have to shout out the crew of silent musicians who played their instruments live on stage in various formations. They were spot-on and added a rich additional layer of perspective to the staging, almost like an extra group of friends to watch with, that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Photo by Matthew Murphy

The clever set is, like the show, much more than it first appears. Seemingly a drab collection of sandy colored buildings, each structure unfolds into varying levels of depth to provide totally new settings (for example, flip open a wall and an alleyway is suddenly a roller skating club). A turntable stage cleverly allows for dynamic choreography and scene changes, quickly transitioning us through locations and plotlines. Several well-chosen projections are also included, almost creating dreamscapes as characters describe their inner desires, and I appreciated the mystical affect they offered.

Photo by Matthew Murphy

We live in a noisy world. A disjointed world. A hurting world. A world in chaos. The success of a show like The Band's Visit, an uncomfortably quiet, emotionally haunting, darkly comedic, 90 minute meditation on finding beauty through life's hardest moments in one of the most conflict-ridden areas of the earth, is hardly assured. And yet... I couldn't help thinking in the dark theater, sitting in communion with my fellow arts lovers as the stunning strings of "Omar Sharif" wafted through the air like the most precious incense and Chilina Kennedy gracefully wended like altar smoke around the moonlit stage, that maybe The Band's Visit is exactly what such a world needs.

Photo by Matthew Murphy

This is a production that defies all attempts to classify itself into dichotomies, staying firmly put in the much messier, harder but truer, world of the liminal. There is no good or bad, villain or hero, right or wrong. Actions taken with good intentions have devastating consequences, just as actions that might be classified as bad or immoral provide some of the only moments of happiness these characters experience. I found it a moving, vital salve to the extreme noise that confronts me every time I look at my newsfeeds. Sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is to turn off the noise, listen to the sounds around us, and silently conduct our bodies into harmony with the natural world, weeping hearts and all. The Band's Visit is a lovely, wistful balm for what ails us all these days and highly worth a visit. Click here for more information or to buy your tickets before it leaves town on December 15.

Photo by Matthew Murphy