Adelin Phelps and Kiara Jackson
(Photo by Petronella J. Ytsma)
Hansol Jung’s Cardboard Piano is like watching a drop of love and a drop of hate fall next to each other, causing two ripple effects that collide and intersect.
Part I is set in a church in a Northern Uganda township–“not one of stone and stained glass, more a small town hall dressed up to be a church” with a hole in the roof (script description)–where two 16-year-old girls in the congregation have fallen in love. Christina Jennifer Englewood, played by Adelin Phelps, is the daughter of white missionaries; Adiel Nakalinzi, played by Kiara Jackson, is a local Ugandan girl. They meet in the church on New Year’s Eve 1999 to hold a secret wedding ceremony to bind their forbidden relationship–their pure but forbidden love for each other.
Michael Jemison
What hateful act happens on that New Year’s Eve when 13-year-old Pika, an injured runaway child soldier, played by Michael Jemison, seeks refuge in the church proves to reverberate throughout everyone’s lives within the play for years to come.
Watching a drama in the depths of a Minnesota winter and a harsh political/social climate may seem daunting to some, as expressed by one season ticket holder who’d told me, “This season I decided to just see all the comedies.” But I hope that she reconsiders because, in my opinion, she’ll really be missing out.
It’s hard to describe the special quality of this play that made us emit a jaw-dropping “Wow!” upon having either first seen it at its world premiere in Louisville, Kentucky, or read the script in our own living rooms. I find myself frequently using the word “transcendent” and others, “beautiful,” due to how playwright Hansol Jung so ably captured the humanity within a so often inhumane world. The patrons who’d seen the world premiere performance described it as “an extraordinary experience that doesn’t tell you what to think, but opens your mind to the human capacity for hatred, forgiveness, love and faith–and perhaps hope.”
Adelin Phelps reads her script.
(Photo by Connie Shaver)
Perhaps actor Adelin Phelps, in our recent conversation, best described why Cardboard Piano is a “don’t miss” play: “The world is in a lot of pain now and has been for a long time. When we watch stories unfold in front of us, it connects us in different ways. When people see Cardboard Piano, they may not leave feeling resolved but more open and connected to each other. With a play that has difficult moments, it can be cathartic, healing and inspiring. The play is also about love, forgiveness and how we move forward. When I first read it, I remember being aware of the painful parts but also how it was like a beating heart.”
Come join us at Park Square Theatre to see Cardboard Piano on the Boss Thrust Stage from January 19 to February 18. Tickets and information are available here.
