Review: The Surgeon and Her Daughters, an Epic Fizzle

Chance haunts Chris Gabo’s new play, The Surgeon and Her Daughters, now making its world premiere with Colt Coeur. Who gets ahead? Who gets away? Who gets a break? In a country preoccupied with personal choice and willpower, Gabo dares to contemplate the inky waters of fate, like Sophocles and Aeschylus before him. That willingness to look beyond the prevailing mythology of his age is admirable, at least—the most commendable thing about this unfortunate play.

It begins auspiciously, with a distraught Sudanese surgeon named Mohammed (Brian D. Coats) stumbling into a bar. Lightning designer Reza Behjat quickly redirects our attention to the other side of the stage, where Mariana (Liza Fernandez) gulps down her liquid courage. This man mumbling in Arabic and clutching his chest is the unlikely object of her desire. She too is a healer—an army medic—and awkwardness attracts. After several minutes of her drunken boasts and his undergraduate poetry, we can see but one outcome written in the stars: These people are going to bone.

At the crack of dawn, Mariana returns fizzing with post-coital glee to her Astoria home, where her adult daughters, Celia (Yadira Guevara) and Ashley (Kana Seiki), interrogate her about her night over chocolate chip pancakes and bacon (scenic designer Tatiana Kahvegian has installed a real working stove on her rotating set, which provides a nice moment of olfactory design).

Giggles abound until Mom drops a bombshell: She’s being redeployed, even though she is on the cusp of retirement. After lecturing her mother about her complicity in imperialism (never mind the bananas and chocolate on the table), Celia incants a curse: “If by some miscarriage of fate, that you invited—you end up dying … for them. I will never—ever—forgive you.”  Care to peer into your crystal ball and divine what happens next?

The Surgeon and Her Daughters is full of twists and turns as the cast of characters expands to include Isaiah (Eden Marryshow, wrapping his mouth around Gabo’s language like it was his own), who works with Mohammed handing out fliers for an Irish pub in Times Square. And then there is their nasty Mexican American boss, Mr. O’Halleron (Johnny Sánchez, exuding the irritation of someone who has genuinely lived the American dream and cannot understand why everyone else cannot do the same).

All these characters eventually converge, as they might in an epic novel. But without a runway of several hundred pages, the coincidence feels rushed and unearned. We can always sense Gabo’s hand guiding the wheel of fortune.

Even a considerably gifted director like Adrienne Campbell-Holt cannot overcome our incredulity, which is further piqued by uneven acting (usually a strong point of any Colt Coeur production). The rhythm is completely off, and a strange lethargy pervades even the tensest moments. Granted, these actors have the unenviable task of trotting out exposition deep into the second act, like they’re in an Agatha Christie mystery. Third characters conveniently leave for the corner store so the remaining two can fight. And while Gabo’s language is consistently sharp and inventive, it is never enough to compensate for his equally reliable contrivance.

At least Sarita P. Fellows outfits the performers in smartly selected costumes, from Mohammed’s grandfatherly cable-knit cardigan to O’Halleron’s colorful button-downs (this is exactly how my impatient immigrant entrepreneur husband dresses).

Salvador Zamora is trying his darndest to impose order through his sound design: We are primed with bass-heavy, slightly nerdy hip-hop in the pre-show. Occasionally we can hear the faint chop of a helicopter overhead. It’s intriguing, but ultimately it leads nowhere as The Surgeon and Her Daughters hurtles toward its inconclusive conclusion.

But maybe that’s just how the world is, full of random noise and distraction that we, for our own comfort, transform into meaning.