Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
One Day At A Time
Comedian reflects on last decade in new show
Alot can change in a decade. But, as we’ve all seen, a lot can also change in 18 months. Northwest Arkansas standup comedian Raj Suresh was supposed to perform his new show, “4,000 Days,” in April 2020 as part of the Walton Arts Center’s inaugural Mosaix festival.
The show explores the time since Suresh immigrated to the United States from southern India and some of the highs and lows — but mostly highs — he’s experienced along the way. Originally, the show would been performed on Suresh’s 4,000th day in the country, but he will finally get to share the work at the WAC on Saturday.
“Every once in a while I like to find a creative angle that will push me,” Suresh muses, pointing to his 2017 show “Maya: Raj and Rozenbridge” that was presented as part of Crystal Bridges Museum’s Artinfusion programming. “Maya,” he notes, didn’t play like a routine stand-up show. There was music, storytelling, interplay between the musician duo and Suresh, as well as jokes throughout.
“This takes on some of that, where it’s more of a concept show in some ways,” he says turning back to “4,000 Days.”
“I remember sitting down in the initial listening sessions that we were having for Mosaix with the Indian community and the Walton Arts Center, and just kind of hearing the collective experiences that everybody was bringing to the table — whether it was from dance, or music or film. And from the comedy standpoint of things, my position in this community is someone that effectively serves sometimes as a bridge between those two communities. So it’s honestly a big honor for me to get the chance to represent the Indian community on stage in some ways, and also talk a little bit about what that experience is like to come to America.”
Mosaix is a collaboration between WAC and community organizations and cultural influencers with the goal of elevating the intersection of arts and cultures — hence the “x” — that make up the mosaic of Northwest Arkansas. India was to be the first culture to be celebrated with the inaugural weeklong festival, but after the pandemic’s postponement, organizers decided to spread the programming throughout the full season.
“The reason I came back was because this was still a place that has good creative energy, and I felt like I was able to do more,” Suresh says of returning to Northwest Arkansas from New York City after the pandemic hit. “There’s always an abundance of things happening in the state and in the tri-state area that I’m well connected to just as a virtue of having lived here for so long.
“That’s probably one thing I’ve noticed over the many, many years that I’ve enjoyed living here and then doing stand-up: over seven or eight years, the number of people that have been showing up at shows that were showing up in the first year is still insane to me,” Suresh continues, noting the local community as an example of one of the greatest highs of his immigration journey.
“That someone would stick with my version of a dream for that long and support it, it’s just a testament to so many great, great folks [who] came into my life over this period of time. So it’s not necessarily a show about being an immigrant or anything like that. That’s part of it, but it’s really a show that sort of covers — in as funny a way as I can make it — what it is to be somebody that sort of lives through the American experience.”