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Celia Keenan-Bolger plays the American mother who's shocked to one day discover two Tibetan Buddhists (James Saito is an esteemed Lama, Jon Norman Schneider a more simple Monk) at her door, proclaiming that her son is the newest human form of the Lama's teacher. James Yaegashi portrays her husband, a refugee from Tibet who fled to the United States in pursuit of religious freedom. The boy in question, Tenzin, is a bunraku puppet (designed by Matt Acheson) and voiced by an older actor (Ernest Abuba) who walks behind or beside it onstage. Beyond that... Well, it's difficult to move much beyond that, as things unfold without a hint of surprise or narrative invention on Ruhl's part. The mother must search her soul and rage against the possibility of "losing" Tenzin, even though, as she's married to a Buddhist and is sympathetic to the religion (she has not yet "taken refuge," or "converted," but is close), she knows how important it is. The father must feel his own beliefs are threatened. And all must go to India to see what this lifestyle would have to offer Tenzin if everyone decides to go along with what the Lama requests. The creativity comes through the presentation, as the mother experiences—or, perhaps more accurately, is haunted by—three more or less traditional Buddhist ceremonies: a wedding (even though she married her husband at city hall; fantasy is a powerful thing); a remembrance for the father's deceased mother, when they were unable to attend the funeral; and one more that, ahem, it would be spoiling to mention in any depth. Certainly these moments anchor Ruhl's play in the necessary, even meditative, serenity, and are gorgeous rendered by director Rebecca Taichman and her designers (Mimi Lien did the simple, sprawling-spare sets, Anita Yavich the elaborate costumes, Japhy Weideman the lights, and Darron L. West the evocative sound). The acting is highly appropriate for what it is, with Yaegashi nicely blending patience and strain as the father being torn between two ways of life, Saito and Schneider projecting both firmness and kindness for two men who have been put in a uniquely difficult position, and Abuba has no trouble making natural his assignment of playing at once the oldest and youngest characters onstage. Keenan-Bolger, in by the biggest role, is a shimmering Hallmark of Americanism, though I wouldn't have minded seeing some emotional levels beyond the confused exasperation that's her go-to feeling for pretty much every scene. What hampers The Oldest Boy, as with almost all of Ruhl's plays, is a lack of dramatic discipline and the technical rigor that might compensate for it. Ruhl is outstanding at devising ideas, as anyone who's seen her previous The Clean House, Eurydice, Dead Man's Cell Phone, In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play, or Stage Kiss knows. But at developing or editing them, she's far less adept, and tends to lead a thoughtful, or perhaps even brilliant, premise adrift in an ocean of excess. That's still unavoidably the case here, despite much that works in this adult story of spiritual obligation amid an era of personal satisfaction above all else. The depth of relationships between not only parents and children, but also teacher and student (the mother is a former "ABD" professor who abandoned her studies of "religious devotion in the work of atheist American writers" when her mentor died), is nicely, if gently, explored. And Ruhl does find some fascinating power within a conflict conducted by people who disagree on Tenzin's proper course, but in no case want anything other than the best for him. But even with an intense focus on the boy, that conflict is never quite real as rendered, so nothing can really soar. Part of it is that Ruhl has not bothered to name a single other character, which makes them more archetypes than people. Part of it is that the father, though he spends a huge amount of time onstage, comes across as largely voiceless, leaving a itchy sensation of one-sidedness throughout. Part of it is that economy of time (the evening runs about an hour and 45 minutes, with intermission) does not translate to economy of storytelling; excising a useless flashback to the early days of the mother and father's courtship and marriage, as but one example, would cut 15 minutes but no vital information. Ruhl was apparently intending to fuse the classical and the contemporary by putting a present-day spin on an ancient Asian-style morality epic, loading it down with pregnant pauses, stylish traditionalism, and even a chorus of dancers (Tsering Dorjee, Takemi Kitamura, Nami Yamamoto, all excellent) to prove that there's no permanent escape of the history you're born into. Wweep alone won't accomplish that, however, and when Ruhl must show the impact this all has on current American ideals, she falls short of convincingly arguing, to say nothing of merely presenting, the Western side of the story. The Oldest Boy shows, in a way that few of Ruhl's previous plays have, how openly the playwright is willing to consider the human heart as her foremost theatrical fuel, so she may well yet live up to her early promise. But a central point of this script is that, whatever other externals we may wish to apply, sometimes the smartest thing to do is just let truths speak for themselves. This is a lesson that Ruhl herself obviously still needs to learn.
The Oldest Boy
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