By Simi Horwitz
What a concept--an American-born East Indian Valley Girl and her spoiled-brat bother who just hates "stinky old India where everyone is stupid and doesn't have cool stuff," like Nintendo video games and Ninja turtle gear.
"Sakina's Restaurant," the latest semi-autobiographical one-man show--in the John Leguizamo vein--skewers and embraces a host of immigrant types, in this instance East Indians: the traditionalist parents and the super-Americanized kids in conflict with each other and the new society they find themselves in. "Sakina's Restaurant," written by and starring Aasif Mandvi in seven roles, opened at Off-Broadway's American Place Theatre, June 24.
Mandvi, who moves from character to character with chameleon-like ease, admits he's playing with stereotypes. But he's convinced they serve a purpose for both East Indians and Americans. He hopes the former "will feel pride in seeing themselves represented," and Americans will "realize there's more to the person than the stereotype. And I hope most Americans would be able to relate to the universality of the Indian's experience as an immigrant--what it's like to be isolated in a new land.
"The style of the show is very western," Mandvi continues. "I am a product of American culture talking about East Indian culture in an American idiom."
Mandvi says frankly that, like many American actors, he initially saw the one-man show as a theatrical stepping-stone. "I was doing stand-up comedy, lots of Indian jokes about my dad not being able to speak English. I got tired of that quickly. Then I created characters, thinking that would be a great way to showcase myself. Then I realized I had a story to tell and as I worked on the piece it became a cathartic journey. I had to tell this story before I told anything else." The play was created and developed with Wynn Handmann, APT's artistic director and Mandvi's acting teacher.
The 30-ish Bombay native's credits include Off-Broadway appearances in "Death Defying Acts," at the Variety Arts Theatre; "subUrbia," at Lincoln Center Theater; and "Crosscurrents, " at Ubu Rep. In film he has had roles in "Die Hard With a Vengeance," "Analyze This," and "Martial Law," among others. TV credits: "Law & Order," "Nash Bridges," and "The Cosby Mysteries."
Culture Gap
We meet the outgoing Mandvi in his dressing room shortly before a preview performance. Beneath the affability, there emerges a man who has had his share of struggle. By his own admission, "It's not easy to be an American--be in a society that has a very different world view from my own. This is an I culture. Indians are a we culture. Indians are not self-analyzing or self-displaying. It's a very traditional, reserved culture, perhaps more so than other immigrant groups."
He stresses that being an actor in any culture is difficult, but it is more so for the son of immigrants "to whom a career in the arts is alien. For my parents, performers are on the fringes. For them a real career is medicine, law, or business. They're more accepting of what I'm doing now because I can pay my rent and they've enjoyed this show. They've never seen anything like it before, but they've been in America long enough--almost 20 years--to be comfortable with seeing Indians presented on a stage in this [affectionately self-mocking] light."
But "Sakina's Restaurant" is more than a character piece, Mandvi stresses. It's a journey towards self-acceptance.
"Asgi, the central figure, comes to America with great expectations," Mandvi notes. "His dream is to make big money and drive a Cadillac. Ventura Highway and California girls--that's the goal. Asgi learns that he's not going to find anything--his identity or his dreams--out there. The answers are within, meaning he cannot deny who he is or what he has come out of. The characters here who abandon their identity and connection to the past are unhappy."
When we suggest, on the contrary, they're unhappy because their cultural roots--not American values--are strangling them, Mandvi acknowledges that element, adding that it's natural for each generation to become one step more removed from its cultural heritage. Still, as a second-generation American, "You have to come to terms with your past."
The son of a stockbroker--"No, he didn't own a restaurant"--Mandvi lived in England for the first 16 years of his life before he and his family emigrated to the States, and settled in Tampa, Fla. Mandvi knew he wanted to be an actor as a youngster when he saw the movie, "Bugsy Malone," starring Scott Baio and Jodie Foster: "It was an all-kid gangster movie and it looked like so much fun." Mandvi joined a community theatre group and later majored in drama at the University of Southern Florida.
In 1991, he came to New York "and stood in line outside Actors' Equity every morning starting at 6 am," to sign up for Actor Equity interview/auditions. Three years later, he enjoyed a turning point of sorts."I sent in a picture cold, without an agent, to Lincoln Center, which was casting Eric Bogosian's 'subUrbia.' The part I was right for had already been cast, but I became the understudy."
Mandvi admits candidly that ethnic typecasting is a problem. "I've played lots of cab drivers and street vendors. In England, I'd be typecast as a shopkeeper." He stresses, "Typecasting ultimately comes down to who's writing the scripts."
Although Mandvi continues to define himself largely as an actor, the allure of writing is there, too. Indeed, he's penning another one-man show for himself. "I've spent my whole life acting, but now I'm most interested in performing my own work. I'm influenced by Eric Bogosian and John Leguizamo, but I'm also very interested in Spalding Gray's story-telling. I'm hoping that my next piece will have more narrative elements."
None of this is to say that Mandvi doesn't want to write full-length plays and screenplays that he may or may not star in; nor does it suggest that he pooh-poohs the prospect of appearing in the work of other playwrights.
"I'd love to play Petruchio but when I look at western literature, I generally feel it was not written for me. I feel I have to force myself into those roles. Tom Stoppard's 'Indian Ink,' now playing on the West End, is, of course, an exception. It has great roles for Indians and I can connect to the kind of identity crisis the characters are experiencing." He smiles, "I never realized I had an identity crisis until I started writing about it. But then all actors have identity crisis--the act of putting on and taking off masks. I have the added element of being an outsider."
Mandvi makes a related point about an outsider who is also an actor. "It works for me and it doesn't. On the one hand, because I'm an actor, I'm good at mimicking the culture--American culture. And that's good. But it's not good, because the mimicry is not based on my own self. It's not grounded in my reality." q
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