Kevin Berne Photo
Protaganist Guang, a Chinese deliveryman, faces the elevator in a wrestling match.
From: “Melissa Bailey”
Date: Jun 26, 2013 12:31 PM
Subject: your play
To: “Aaron Jafferis”
Cc:
Hey Aaron,
Nice to see you at Stuck Elevator last week. Powerful stuff. It’s been one of my favorite productions at Arts & Ideas so far.
Taking you up on your invite to email some thoughts on your (excellent) show. Including a couple of constructive (I hope?) criticisms.
Kevin Berne Photo
Going into it, I was kind of apprehensive about the lack of plot: just one dude sitting in an elevator, for 81 hours? And singing the whole time? But the real-life story it’s based on—immigrant deliveryman too afraid of deportation to push the help button — seemed compelling. And I had a hunch you’d make it work.
Quick verdict: You did.
Kevin Berne Photo
I loved how you broke through the walls of the elevator (and time/space) and let the play flow between reality and zany fantasy. The lucha libre fight was hilarious. The “shame” moment was really poignant. And I liked the times when the other four characters ganged up on Guang: The convergence of their various motives/roles/emotions was quite beautiful.
Kevin Berne Photo
Guang regrets selling his phone to fellow deliveryman and roommate Marco.
Marco was a hoot and nailed the raps.
Overall, I loved how you used little details (the three sauces in Guang’s bag; how much $$ he was losing per hour by being stuck in the elevator; how this was his only reprieve from the noise of the city because of the blaring Mexican wrestling at home) to tell a really human story without hitting us over the head with the Immigration-In-America theme. I felt a great range of hope and despair and laughter, often swirled together.
There were just two parts that came across to me as heavy-handed:
The speech that starts, “I am hunger. I am hunger in the stomach of America…” felt flat to me. Felt more like spelling out the theme versus showing it, as you do so well in other scenes through lively action that works on multiple levels (e.g. being eaten with chopsticks!).
Also, the 11 million figure at the finale took me away from the powerful human story into the realm of a political news report. Maybe because we hear that number [of undocumented immigrants in the USA] so much in the news? I see where you’re going by elevating the singular story into a national one. But that number for some reason killed the emotional momentum for me.
Last thought: I overheard a high school kid after the show suggesting you add numbered buttons to the elevator’s wrestling outfit. I didn’t think it needed changing: I liked how the outfit was a bit abstract, not just a boxy elevator on legs. But it seemed like a great sign that he was into the play enough to approach you with a recommendation.
Anyway, thanks for sharing your talents here at home! We’re lucky you chose to stick around New Haven.
Best,
Melissa
Stuck Elevator, a musical with libretto by New Haven’s own Aaron Jafferis and music by Byron Au Yong, is playing at Long Wharf Stage II until June 29 as part of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas. Ticket info here.
Previous stories on Stuck Elevator:
• City Hip-Hop Poet/Playwright Debuts In San Fran
• “Stuck Elevator” Unsticks Writer’s Imagination
Dear Aaron, I loved Stuck Elevator. I saw it with Juana Islas, whose brother Jose Maria is in immigration prison fighting his deportation.
The elevator shaft was Jose Maria's jail cell, and Guang's story was Jose Maria's story. When I visited him in jail this week, he was worried that every hour he spent in jail was an hour that he could't send money to his nine year old son, wife, and elderly mother in Mexico. He's trying to build them a house, because he grew up in a hut made of cardboard and tin. When storms came and washed away the house and destroyed the crops, his family would go hungry. When he was a baby, his mother strapped him on her back while she picked coffee. When he was twelve, he stopped going to school and joined her in the fields. He wanted to provide a different life for his son, but now he's facing the possibility of returning to his country empty-handed and ashamed. His wife and the people in his village are already talking about him as a failure.
I loved how the play ended with a reference to the 11 million undocumented who are in the United States today. This is the story of one person, but it is also the story of millions. The hungry belly and the nightmare of owning an all-you-can-eat-buffet. The muggings, the smuggler's debt, and the death crossing the ocean or the Rio Grande. The confusion of Chinese, Spanish and English. The way the immigrant becomes estranged from his family and himself. The way every citizen becomes part of the violent security machine. These are true stories told in music, poetry and images that just about broke my heart.