The Language Archive Review
Dante Tirado Morales and Jasmine Burkholder as George and Emma in The Language Archive. Photo courtesy of Anabelle Hopkins.
Last weekend, Reed College Theatre put on its production of Julia Cho’s The Language Archive. The play, directed by Barbie Wu and Faith Roche, was artfully crafted and clearly touching, if unexplosive. The wonderful acting and technical work supported an enjoyable and moving show that never really felt like it found its climax.
The Language Archive was bathed, literally and figuratively, in bright, colorful polka-dots of whimsy. The design work behind the show, which felt reminiscent of the bright retrospection of shows like Ratchetand WandaVision and was summed up by an audience member as “giving ‘60s,” never felt flamboyant or over-ambitious. Instead, everything from Benjamin Weikel’s delightfully eerie sound design to Gabe Howland’s punchy lighting to Peter Ksander’s dazzling multi-story set were efficiently honed story-telling machines that supported the actors and pushed the story forward. Nothing felt out of place, and the few minor gaffes caught by this Quest reporter did not hinder the story. Perhaps the only exception was Adrian Zhang’s makeup, and though I hate to nitpick (that was a lie), the clear edges of his much paler makeup were occasionally just gauche enough to drag me out of my suspension of disbelief.
The cast (and casting) of The Language Archive was overwhelmingly brilliant. Dante Tirado Morales did what many actors cannot — namely understand that the assignment is to capture a personality and build from tropes and words, a character, not to flaunt melodramatic charisma. Morales brought George, a fidgety, nervous, nerdy and inarticulate scientist, to life with vibrant realism, all without sacrificing emotional depth and maintaining a sparklingly dry wit. Cassie Minicucci was able to capture an enormous amount of nuance, and Jasmine Burkholder was often the emotional core of the cast, bringing a fresh genuineness to heavier, more maudlin scenes. As the smitten secretary, Emma. Isabelle Wong and Adrian Zhang were saddled with portraying an elderly, married couple from the fictional town of Elloway, and were unable to escape monotony. Their one-note physicality successfully read as ‘old,’ and with the help of some stunning costuming, “other,” but their individual characters got lost in caricature. Both were exceptionally funny, but sometimes floundered in more dramatic scenes.
As a whole, the show suffered with some minor pacing issues, especially in the first half. As Adrian Zhang’s character, Resten, is rushed to the hospital, the play felt ready to kick into higher gear, particularly with intermission drawing near, but instead, the pace dragged. Additionally, despite the enormous emotional impact of Cho’s epilogue scene, brilliantly captured in the production, the placement of what is essentially the climax at the end of the show was an interesting, but ultimately unsuccessful narrative experiment.
The Language Archive captured the funny, tragic, and profound in one brightly colored evening, and then had the enormous grace to share it with all of us. The show was billed, front and center, as a tale about archiving language, but its production elevated it to also be a poignant celebration of love.