Emma Sheanshang’s Characters Fumble Toward Spiritual Enlightenment in ‘The Fears’

It’s not easy to adopt a Zen approach to life in New York City. The handful of locals who gather regularly at a Buddhist center in Emma Sheanshang’s new play, “The Fears,” don’t have to tell you this; in the world premiere production, the first thing we hear is the roar of traffic. Moments later, the drilling starts, and during the 90-minute play we also hear sirens wailing, to say nothing of the profanity-pocked exchanges that unfold on the street.If Ms. Sheanshang’s urbanites seldom seem distracted by such noise, it’s not because their sessions have brought them any closer to nirvana. Each has endured a particular traumatic episode, or series of episodes, though rules dictate these should not be addressed specifically. Instead, the disparate survivors discuss their current experiences and concerns, pausing when necessary to take deep breaths, “check the weather in the room,” and, when that temperature soars, turn to the exercise referred to in the play’s title.“We take a piece of paper and a pencil, and write any fears,” the group’s attractive, composed leader, Maia, explains to a young woman who’s joining in for the first time. But “not the big one,” she quickly adds.The newcomer, Thea, turns out to be something of a live wire, though, and it’s not long before unresolved tensions are boiling over in the cozy office — furnished by scenic designer Jo Winiarski with burnt-orange walls and a prominent portrait of the Buddha — exposing big fears and some of their origins. We learn that one older woman, Suzanne, endured sexual assault as a teenager, at the hands of a priest, and that Thea lost her mother at the age of 6, in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Then there’s the secret revealed later in the play, not only to the audience but to all except one of the characters, shaking their very faith in the group and its pursuit.Produced by filmmaker Steven Soderbergh and directed by Dan Algrant, whose own screen credits include “Greetings from Tim Buckley” and the Al Pacino vehicle “People I Know,” “The Fears” unfolds slowly, focusing on the quirks that define these men and women and the conflicts between them. Some of these are milked for their comedic value: Suzanne, played by a tastily acerbic Robyn Peterson, repeatedly draws the ire of Mehran Khaghani’s drolly flamboyant Fiz, a loose cannon who takes an instant liking to Kerry Bishé’s blunt, passionate Thea.Natalie Woolams-Torres’s Rosa, an immigrant, is another big, boisterous presence, oozing warmth while supporting her colleagues but panicking whenever someone mentions cancer, and despairing openly about her family’s struggles. Carl Hendrick Louis’s Mark, an actor, is a relatively cool customer on the surface; when it’s his turn to “touch in” — that is, disclose what he’s been grappling with lately — he recounts an experience with work-related anxiety that made him resolve “to practice non-aggressive biking.”Ms. Sheanshang is able to spryly send up the group’s sometimes mannered efforts as they fumble toward spiritual enlightenment. Rosa and others are quick to apologize for what they perceive as inappropriate remarks, then even quicker to withdraw their apologies, remembering the rule against saying you’re sorry. When tempers flare, Maddie Corman’s gentle but perceptibly haunted Maia urges the offending or offended party to “extend a wing of compassion.” Yet the playwright also clearly recognizes and extols the benefits — the necessity, in fact — of qualities such as empathy and patience. The seemingly youngest and most patently troubled character in “The Fears,” Katie, portrayed with burgeoning intensity by Jess Gabor, becomes a catalyst in the play’s evolution into something more suspenseful and sobering than its first passages suggest.That’s not to say you’ll emerge from the production feeling spooked or burdened, any more than you would from a productive session with a Buddhist teacher. In the end, Ms. Sheanshang makes a compelling and entertaining case for showing compassion to ourselves and others, and for living in the now, at least to the extent that modern life allows us to do so.

Emma Sheanshang’s Characters Fumble Toward Spiritual Enlightenment in ‘The Fears’

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