‘Alladeen’ is a marvel
Offshore outsourcing is a scary concept. But no one we know needs to be uneasy. Some jobs like, oh, take for example … mmmm … being a theater critic, just to pull something right out of the blue. Such work could never be performed by high-skill, low-wage workers in some Third World country.
According to economist Paul Craig Roberts, “Any worker whose job does not require daily face-to-face interaction is now in jeopardy of being replaced by a lower paid equally skilled worker thousands of miles away.” Aha! Writing about theater requires the old face-to-face. Whew! That’s settled. Now back to work.
“Alladeen,” an Ali Baba’s cave of marvels that is playing at On the Boards, is about offshore outsourcing. It is also about wishes and wish fulfillment. It is also about the power of American pop culture to capture imaginations all over the world. The title, “Alladeen,” is a riff on the “Arabian Nights” tale of Aladdin and his magic lamp – rub it, a genie appears, the genie grants your every wish.
“Alladeen” takes place, mostly, in a call center in Bangalore, India. Young, well-educated Indians who are fluent in English work there. They do tech support and telemarketing, they make reservations for planes, hotels and rental cars. They cultivate and fulfill longings. They master American accents. Their lives of air-conditioned affluence are surrounded by heat and poverty.
Because they work at night (to be in sync with U.S. business hours), they are socially isolated. Five live actors are correspondingly isolated within a fabulous array of immense video projections, sparkly crawl light messages, eerie shadows and brilliant colors. The actors – Rizwan Mirza, Heaven Phillips, Tanya Selvaratnam, Jasmine Simhalan and Jeff Webster – give hints of character, conflict, aspiration, humor, disappointment and interaction.
But “Alladeen” is more about themes and images than character and story. In fact, insistent themes and images of de-personalization pretty much squish vague intimations of character and story. Framing sequences take place in front of Virgin Megastores, one in New York (the first scene) and the other in London (the last scene). Talk about de-personalization! The stores are indistinguishable.
“Alladeen” is the work of the New York performance company The Builders Association and the London media producers motiroti. The production is on tour. It is a marvel. Its electronic virtuosity is cosmopolitan – suitable for audiences all over the world. To sample the show’s aesthetic, check out the multibranched Web site, www.alladeen.com.
The razzle and dazzle of “Alladeen” are almost sufficient to distract one from the worrisome aspects of its basic reality: offshore outsourcing.