Broken Wing by Leila Ghaznavi - CalArts festival theatre

Broken Wing by Leila Ghaznavi - CalArts festival theatre

Broken Wing is a love tragedy set in Iran. A young brash American photographer (Matthew Goodrich), is stomping across the world when he gets a job documenting the Damascus Rose Harvest; the miracle of the desert. His host is an iranian man (Armando McClain) whose much younger wife (Kaitlin Cornuelle) is very beautiful, and curious... And so are the cards dealt. It's only a matter of time before temptation leads to tragedy.

The play is set on a typically minimalist Fringe-stage, however the set and costume designer (Kit Stolen) has risen to the challenge to create a simplistically captivating backdrop using nothing more than wall tapestries. These are arranged in a fashion to separate the stage and indeed the time and place where each scene occurs. Lighting (Zach Moore) and sound (Martin Gimenez) also pays a key point in the play and are executed with tight precision by the Venue 13 production crew. The opening scene for example, with the all too beautiful Kaitlin Cornuelle dancing us into the story, is a triumph of the visual performance arts.

That said, however good the technicals are, this play belongs to the expertly crafted story and the almost flawless performances of the actors. Everyone is all to convincing making the horror of the ending, an ending we approach in carefully woven stages, all the more bleakly emotional.

Okay, okay, sometimes the cast fluff a line or a technical problem causes a hiccup, but with a story like this, and acting that engages the audience from the very first moment, it's a cheap price to play.

I'd give this one four and half stars out of five. If you only get to see one daytime show at the fringe, this is the one to choose.