Review - The North Pool

I don't know how I let Rajiv Joseph's new play, The North Pool, slip by me for so long - I had put a discount offer in my e-mail box, but I guess I forgot about it.  Last week, Vineyard Theater sent me another discount offer for the last weekend of the show, so I jumped on it.

I loved Rajiv's Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, and I couldn't figure out why there was so little buzz on this new piece.  Maybe because it was a much smaller show with more tightly contained ideas.  I had adored all the big ideas and the sweeping scale of Bengal Tiger, and at first, I was a little resistant to The North Pool, but by the end, I was completely committed.  Oh, and I should say that I almost had to change my seat due to my seat neighbor, who clearly consumed massive quantities of sauerkraut and alcohol before the show, but I found a handkerchief, turned to the side and made it through the evening.  :)

The set is a very realistically cluttered high school vice-principal's office, with cheesy 'success' posters, office supplies and a map of the United States.  Our two characters, the vice-principal and a student who has to stay after school, play a cat-and-mouse game that gets deeper and deeper, and sadder and sadder as the minutes tick by.  I couldn't have predicted where this play was going and I was quite moved at the characters' need for a connection after all the psychological warfare that preceded it. 

Both actors were terrific - Stephen Barker Turner as the vice-principal and Babak Tafti as the student, Khadim, were natural and wonderful.  They both showed many levels of truth and artifice.  I have to admit, I immediately bought Turner as an educator because he reminded me so much of a teacher I had in high school.  It was actually a little creepy, to be honest.  I can tell stories someday if anyone likes.  But this actor really caught the essence of a small-town, small-minded man who doesn't see himself as either small-town or small-minded.  The depths of his delusions are very intriguing.

Tafti was also excellent at portraying the different sides of Khadim.  One of the things I most enjoyed about the script was the shift of power throughout.  Each actor has their time of being in charge and being the one asking the questions, until you suddenly realize the questions they originally ask isn't the question they both desperately need to have answered.  Tafti's reaction to the discovery of a certain object towards the end of the play was quite touching and showed both sides of the power coin.  I found this very original in the writing and the acting.

I will say that I think there were maybe too many revelations, too many twists and turns.  I understand why there were so many layers (one of the characters refers to himself as being like an onion), but too many facets seemed to clutter the narrative.  At least to me.  But I wasn't bored for an instant.  This play was totally real to me, and if I missed the flights of fancy of Bengal Tiger, well, that's ok.  It's good to see a young writer stretch and try new things.  With such wonderfully insightful dialogue and character construction, and a terrific sense of pacing, Rajiv should never run out of things to say.  I look forward to what's next.