Playwright: Naomi Iizuka. At: TimeLine Theatre Company, 615 W. Wellington Ave. Tickets: 773-281-8463; www.timelinetheatre.com; $32-$42. Runs through: April 14
"The camera doesn't lie" may have been a plausible assertion when first uttered in 1859, although our own age of DIY Photoshopping might make "Cameras don't liepeople lie" a more accurate assessment. Naomi Iizuka explores the distortions in our perceptions, some imposed from outside and some inherent in our own humanity, as applied to international, intergenerationaloh, and let's not forget intergenderrelations.
Our story begins in 1884, with a U.S. husband and wife living in Yokohama, Japan. A picture glimpsed in the studio of expatriate photographer Adolfo Farsari spurs the repressed Isabel to embark in search of adventure in this foreign land, while another predisposes the stodgy Edmund to embrace adventure when it confronts him. We then leap ahead in time to present-day Tokyo, where an art historian negotiateswith the help of an interpreterthe purchase of some antique Farsaris from a descendant of their original owner. Advances in film editing/finishing techniques being equal-opportunity weapons for fraud and extortion, none of them are bargaining in good faith, but when, asks Iizuka, was it ever otherwise?
Therein lies the ray of hope offered to cynics who would lament the corruption bred of technological sophistication. An impairment arising from a "blind spot" in the optic nerve, we are told, renders even what we see with our own eyes untrustworthy (so much for "seeing is believing")but we acclimate to this flawed vision, our imaginations supplying the missing information to deliver us a coherent picture. The false images of long-lost realms viewed by Isabel and Edmund do not preclude their ultimately finding fulfillment, faith in the camera's infallibility conjuring reality from fantasy. Their hubristic modern counterparts, by contrast, discover themselves to be betrayed by the very instruments whose evidence they would manipulate.
These are a lot of metaphysical dimensions to travel in only 90 minutes, but Timeline production spares no effort in guiding us on our tour. Lisa Fortes' direction, assisted by an all-star technical teamincluding such specialized consultants as Eva Breneman overseeing the dialects, Nan Zabriskie assuring the accuracy of the full-body tattoos and Julia Eberhardt's geographically precise decorkeep our attention riveted on the dynamics of the five actors playing eleven widely-diverse roles in the intimate basement space.
Lazy playgoers distracted by the sexual subtexts and Michael Tutaj's dazzling projections may leave with brains unexercised, but they will never look at Instagram in quite the same way again.