Keivin Vang, Stephanie Anne Bertumen, and Clay Man Soo Photo by Tony Nelson

The play is set in Newark, New Jersey, shortly after the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center twin towers and the Pentagon, a time which also drew pointed attention by many voices in politics and in the media, challenging the rules by which we allowed disgruntled strangers to cross our borders. Never mind that it has always been the disgruntled who make the emotionally and physically taxing decision to leave their homeland for a place where they will need to restart their lives on the absolute bottom rung.

Sanctuary City has been brought to life in the Twin Cities by Frank Theatre, a company that goes out of its way to look for plays that require us to think, feel and question. With our 45th president having returned as our 47th, the risk and peril for undocumented residents in the nation is more fraught than ever, creating a chilling context for Majok's play, intensified by the intimacy of Open Eye Theatre, where it is being staged. Under Wendy Knox's adroit direction, the play heats up the stage in its first half with a quick succession of sparks. In the second half, this ignites into a roaring blaze, turning the fuel feeding the flames into husks of ash.

We are introduced to two 17-year-olds, each brought to America by their mothers (fathers are not a factor) from an unspecified foreign country. The two youths are not given names, but identified in the program as B, a boy, and G, a girl. Neither their nationality of origin nor their native language are revealed, allowing the two to represent universal newcomers, documented or not, from any corner of the world.

B and his mother entered this country on a visa, but have overstayed its limit, so have become illegal aliens. G and her mother have legal status in the U.S, but that is close to running out. B and G met in their third grade ESL class and formed a friendship that seems as close as any brother and sister might be. Each has a need for the other. G and her mother live with an abusive man, and G seeks solace at B's apartment, climbing through his bedroom window at all hours to escape her unsafe home. Often she stays the night, sharing B's twin bed with him. B has just learned that his mother decided, after ten years, to return to their homeland–alone, planning to leave B, with his undocumented status, to fend for himself.

In spite of their burdens, G and B are basically good kids, both holding down jobs while maintaining good grades–even when their circumstances sometimes cause them to miss school. One of the funniest bits in the play calls for G and B to come up with phony excuses they can use to call the school office, pretending to be the other's parent, to report their absence.

We learn all of the above in quick, fragmented staccato scenes, some only a few seconds long, in which B and G reveal their lives, offer comfort, question what lies ahead, make excuses, and conjure unrealistic solutions. With the lights off, B and G located in a different part of the nearly bare stage each time the lights return, and snippets of conversation often repeated, sometimes even returning to a previous stream of thought, it is as if these two young people are trying to form the semblance of a life out of its splintered shards. It can be disorienting for us, the audience, which is no doubt how G and B experience their lives.

Excellent performances by Stephanie Anne Bertumen (as G) and Clay Man Soo (as B) go a long way to enabling us to piece the fragments together. One thing that is clear throughout is the tenderness they feel toward one another, and the feeling of safety each provides for the other in a perilous world. The fragments of their lives coalesce when they attend their senior prom together–living, for one night, like their lives were in sync with the world around them. When G's immigration status abruptly changes and she becomes a citizen, she is determined to do whatever she can to help B face his dilemma.

There is a long pause and blackout before the second part of the play begins. The bare stage has been filled with a realistic set, the living room of an apartment that has been haphazardly decorated, but still feels fairly neat and homey. We guess the time of year by noting the Christmas lights strung over the window. More than three years have passed. B and G have not seen one another for a long time, and a third character, Henry (Keivin Vang, another sterling performance), appears. The twists and turns that follow in a single scene that takes place in real time, raise profound questions about what one is prepared to give up for love; what it means to make a commitment; the intersection of gender, sexuality and security; and the insidious traps set by our immigration system.

Kathy Kohl's costume design and Joe Stanley's set provide a suitable visual look for the production. Tony Stoeri's lighting and Dan Dukich's sound and music make striking contributions, especially in the first part of the play, emphasizing the jaggedness and dissonance in which G and B are adrift.

The concept of a sanctuary city as a municipality that commits itself to non-cooperation with the federal government's pursuit of immigrants without legal status is much in the news right now. Newark, New Jersey, in which the play is set, is a self-proclaimed sanctuary city, though at the present moment whether or not any city can uphold that commitment is being challenged by unprecedented federal initiatives.

For B and G, at the time this play takes place, living in a sanctuary city provided some cushion for them to work out the threats to their safety and pursue opportunities to make a life. In another sense, in their youth, each of them had been a sanctuary for the other. Majok's play brings to light how difficult it is to maintain that posture, to consistently offer sanctuary and merit trust, even for someone who you love. Sanctuary City is a harrowing play that speaks to this very minute while also addressing enduring questions, and is being given a knock-out production by Frank Theatre.

Sanctuary City, a Frank Theatre production, runs through February 23, 2025, at Open Eye Theatre, 506 East 24th Street, Minneapolis MN. For tickets and information, please visit www.franktheatre.org.

Playwright: Martyna Majok; Director: Wendy Knox; Set Design: Joe Stanley; Costume Design: Kathy Kohl; Lighting Designer: Toni Stoeri; Sound Design and Music Composition: Dan Dukich; Dramaturgy: Beth Cleary and Malin Palani; Stage Manager: Spencer Putney

Cast: Stephanie Anne Bertumen (G), Clay Man Soo (B), Keivin Vang (Henry).