Review Times Square International Theatre Festival by Raluca Albu

 

"From my first viewing of Sanctuary, a powerful one-woman show about the universal experience of war across the centuries, I knew this was a different kind of theatre experience. Playwright/actor/ director/producer Susanne Sulby created a multimedia experience on her black box theatre stage that transported the audience straight to the jail cells of Kosovo one minute, refugee camps in Palestine the next, and suburban kitchens where an American woman (presumably herself) existentially questioned how she can reach the victims and survivors of war on the other side of her TV screen.

Tying the montages together was a combination of the wartime poetry of W.H. Auden—"Here war is simple like a monument"—and epithets from Rumi—"Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen. Not any religion." The simplicity of the set (a scarf here, a video projected image of a sandy mountainscape there) drew attention to the timbre of her character's conviction, pain, and strength. Most importantly, it brought into focus the idea that the experience of war, the grieving involved in both experiencing it or being a helpless spectator to it, are compellingly universal messages. This message was at the heart of all the performances at the festival."