A trilogy of enduring relevance
The Fish Eyes Trilogy (out of 4) Written by Anita Majumdar. Directed by Brian Quirt. Until Oct. 15 at Factory Theatre, 125 Bathurst St. FactoryTheatre.ca or 416-504-9971
Fish Eyes was Anita Majumdar’s first play fresh out of high school. In the 13 years since its first workshop performance, it and the two subsequent monologues that make up The Fish Eyes Trilogy have become her calling card. Majumdar won two Dora Awards for a version of two-thirds of the trilogy — Boys With Cars and Let Me Borrow That Top — adapted for teenage audiences and presented by Young People’s Theatre last year.
Now, the full trilogy kicks off Factory Theatre’s 2017/18 season, paralleling the back-to-school season with the ever-relatable fish-out-of-water experiences of insecure teenagers, but with the added perspective of a cultural outsider, a young Indian woman in a majority white town.
Each monologue is from the perspective of a female high school student in Port Moody, B.C., Majumdar’s hometown.
The enduring relevance of The Fish Eyes Trilogy speaks to persistent issues regarding race and interculturalism, and the progress we’ve made in discussing these issues if not overcoming them.
We now have words to call out the themes in the trilogy: consent, victim-blaming and sexual assault in the anger-filled Boys With Cars, about a young woman named Naz who is accepted and then excluded by “the cools” at school based on her relationship to her male classmates.
It’s cultural appropriation in Let Me Borrow That Top, which uses a YouTube makeup tutorial to expose blond, blue-eyed Candice’s unearned interest in Indian dancing.
And it’s cultural pressure and perfectionism (with underlying hints about mental health) in Fish Eyes, about Meena, training in Indian dance since she was 5 and trying to juggle those demands with her desire for teenage freedom — and boys.
As the first piece written and the fullest story, Fish Eyes closes the trilogy at Factory Theatre, presenting the clearest portrayal of a young woman who’s bubbly yet uncertain, a talented dancer unsure of social interactions.
The longest piece, it also feels thematically light compared to the two previous stories that comprise the first act, which are noticeably more issue-based.
While the lives of these three girls intersect, they don’t always seem part of the same world, though Jackie Chau’s set and costumes, Rebecca Picherack’s lighting and Christopher Stanton’s sound design work together to create a uniform esthetic.
The biggest unifier is Majumdar’s dancing, spliced into the monologues to move the plot along as well as to enhance the story’s subject matter for anyone familiar with the meanings behind certain movements.
And in a flip of convention, the talent that Naz and Meena display through their dancing makes them the ones to emulate in The Fish Eyes Trilogy and Candice the awkward outsider.
Though 13 years older than when she first showed Fish Eyes to an audience, Majumdar is still earnestly devoted to the characters she has created: angry on their behalf, joyful in their innocence, proud of their accomplishments and critical of their shortfalls.
These are young women that contain multitudes and will likely echo through new Canadian plays for another 13 years and beyond.