Playwright: Tim Supple ( translator ) and David Tushingham ( adapter ) . At: Halcyon Theatre, Lincoln Square Arts Center, 4754 N. Leavitt. Phone: 312-458-9170; $15. Runs through: Dec. 16
In hiding from an Islamic death fatwa for his novel The Satanic Verses, Anglo-Indian author Salman Rushdie wrote a book for his 11-year-old son featuring an 11-year-old hero. Haroun and the Sea of Stories ostensibly is a father-and-son picaresque adventure in classic Indo-Persian style. But Rushdie also made it political by creating thinly veiled satiric characters based on Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini ( who issued the fatwa ) , Pakistan's corrupt dictator Zulfikar Ali Bhutto ( Benazir Bhutto's father ) and other Islamic figures. For Rushdie, freedom of expression is the highest freedom and acts of imagination—stories—are political acts in the face of repressive forces. Despite his classical tone, Rushdie's theme is immediate and its political application is universal. Think the United States right now.
A decade ago, Haroun and the Sea of Stories was adapted as a children's play for Great Britain's Royal National Theatre. Given Rushdie's literary fame and political notoriety, it's surprising that this production is Haroun's regional premiere owing to several factors. First, Rushdie's agents may be stingy granting rights. Next, fantasy sequences and a large cast ( Halcyon uses 15 ) make production difficult. Finally, the stage adaptation is charming but not well-structured and is too word-dependent—a considerable irony in a work for which the central question is 'What's the use of stories that aren't even true?'
Rushdie acknowledges that dance, movement, music and symbol are language as much as spoken or written words, yet this adaptation literally tells us everything rather than showing us. It quickly establishes Haroun as the hero, then bogs down introducing secondary characters before taking an intermission ( in the script? or just this production? ) without dramatic purpose. In the last 40 minutes ( it runs about 100 minutes ) Haroun finally becomes an active figure, a point the play needs to reach earlier. The picaresque hero cannot be passive, but must continually use tools placed at his disposal and discover the meaning of hints. Think Harry Potter.
To its credit, Halcyon does much with limited means to vivify what is a colorful and significant story despite its narrative challenges. There's little scenery or lighting ( it really needs more/better lighting ) but great color and fun in the costumes ( Jennifer Zielinski ) and props ( Jessica Jane Childs and Andres Morales ) , which are the chief decorative devices. Director Jennifer Adams and choreographer Alka Nayyar fill the stage with clever and effective motion and tableaux, influenced by Asian theater and dance. The staging often duplicates the spoken text, thus showing and telling and proving that less verbiage would be more in this case. Young Jackson Challinor ( Haroun ) and Chris Amos ( his father ) head the hard-working cast that understands the joy and solemnity of the story but hasn't yet mastered all its rhythms.
