Throughout Indian Cowboy, performer and playwright Zaraawar Mistry asks us to "connect the dots" of his narrator's life. Yet the dots don't necessarily add up in this premiere production at Mixed Blood Theatre. Mistry's story of an immigrant Indian actor's drift through modern America has moments of insight and brilliance, but those are tempered by stretches of dry exposition and characters.
Mistry originally set out to tell the story of Sabu Dastagir, an Indian-born actor who worked in Hollywood (as Sabu) in the 1940s and '50s. While working on that, however, he found that the story he really wanted to tell was closer to his own modern-day experience. He tells this through the eyes of Gayomar Katrak, a Parsi Indian who emigrates to the United States in the early 1980s.
Taking a journey through the American landscape is an old idea, but it's one that can produce rich results, especially when seen by a cultural outsider. And Gayomar is an outsider in every sense of the word, more attuned to observation than action. While this allows Mistry (and collaborator Kathleen Sullivan) to flesh out more than a dozen characters, it does leave the journey at the center of Indian Cowboy diffuse.
Mistry's skills as a performer help carry the audience through the slower stretches. A number of the characters -- such as the trio of eccentric uncles who found Gayomar as an infant and his constantly worried mother -- are a lot of fun. The Americans feel superficial at first, but they do grow as the show moves along. And his relationship with Tina, his on-again off-again lover, rings with truth throughout.
Performing without props apart from candle-powered lights (which serve as the only stage illumination, adding to the evening's intimacy), Mistry paints the scenes with his actions and words. In the mind, a debate between two Indians at a party is performed by three distinct actors, even though the only one taking the roles is Mistry.
Part of my frustration with Indian Cowboy is that, though there are powerful moments here, the main character's inertia prevents me from fully engaging in his world. A revelation about the performance at show's end helps to define it a bit, but in the end the picture made by the various dots remains frustratingly out of focus.
Indian Cowboy runs Jan. 27-Feb. 12 at Mixed Blood Theatre, 1501 S. 4th St., Minneapolis. Tickets: (612) 338-6131. Website: www.mixedblood.com.