PORT/CITIES NYC is the first chapter in what will be a worldwide series that will include events in Jakarta, Perth, Cape Town and Amsterdam, all of which will link the cities through their common history with 17th century Dutch traders. The New York installment, written and directed by Talya Chalef, begins with the promise of a maritime adventure that sees audience members board a ferry on Manhattan’s Pier 11. The idea of taking a ferry as part of a performance appropriately evokes an idea of terror and thrill that must, in some microscopic part, be similar to what Dutch sailors felt as they left their homes in search of new commerce routes.
The ferry ride, from lower Manhattan to Red Hook in Brooklyn, serves as a time portal of sorts in which we go back in time thinking not only of Dutch trade, but immigration and how thousands of hopeful people from all over the world arrived at Ellis Island with the intention of settling in the “promised land”. As people sit on the boat, they’re instructed to listen to a soundscape that acts as the first portion of the narrative part of the show. We listen to Katie (Emma Meltzer), a young archaeologist, describe images that have haunted her forever, especially a photograph that made her wonder about her family history. Her soulful narration is accompanied by Cameron Orr’s lush score, which seemed custom made for the rocking motion of the boat against the small waves of the East River, often lending itself to moments of pure magic.
Once the ferry arrives in Red Hook though, things take a turn for the worst, as an actual performance takes place at the Waterfront Barge Museum, where we discover what Katie found out about her family. In a nutshell she discovers her family was associated with slave traders and also the “tulipmania” that saw the Dutch economy almost crash due to the high price of tulip bulbs. This is all revealed in a fragmented, rather confusing way that sees three other actors (Marcus Crawford Guy, Elizabeth Gray and Nathaniel J. Ryan) play both people currently in Katie’s life, and also historical characters. Infused with forced humor, tongue-in-cheek dialogues and every experimental theatre trope imaginable, the second part of the show definitely kills the magical mood set up during the previous half.
The show’s intentions were so clearly drawn during the ferry ride, that one wonders why Ms. Chalef chose to add such a bewildering development to the rest of the show, one that fails to be either entertaining or educational. For a show that promises the unearthing of truths, PORT/CITIES NYC, forces unwilling audiences to follow Katie’s career path and become archaeologists trying to find a non-existent plot. Then, it ends in a fashion that more than anticlimactic feels like a cop-out, as if afraid of having audiences realize the show was leading nowhere, to end it in a moment of “unimportance” was a bold artistic move. If the show had lived up to the sensuous mood it started off with, we might have been in the presence of something truly special, as it stands one can only wish future chapters don’t fall victim to the sound of their own siren song.
