Source: Variety, Seattle Times
SEATTLE -- This past week at Seattle's ACT Theater, Uzbekistan's Ilkhom Theater company presented a production of "White White Black Stork." The play involves murder, mystery and the redemptive power of art -- much like the remarkable story behind Ilkhom's current five-city U.S. tour.

The idea for the tour was hatched three years ago, when ACT artistic director Kurt Beattie traveled to the Uzbek capital of Tashkent, one of Seattle's sister cities.

"I was there for about two weeks," says Beattie. "And one thing that struck me about the company is that all their works are very different. They range from experimental to serious dramas that relate to the politics of the country -- and then other pieces are pure entertainment."

Beattie and Mark Weil -- the company's internationally celebrated artistic director, a native of Uzbekistan -- plotted to bring Ilkhom (pronounced ilk-home) to Seattle. Plans were all in place last September when tragedy struck: Weil was accosted by two men outside his Tashkent apartment after a late rehearsal, hit over the head with a glass bottle and stabbed. The men fled, and Weil died hours later at a nearby hospital. Reportedly, some of his last words were, "I'm opening a new season tomorrow, no matter what happens."

The company performed the next day, wishing to honor Weil's commitment, and though grief-stricken, its members have managed to carry on. Beattie says those closest to the director don't believe the mystery surrounding his murder will ever be solved.

It's possible that gay subject matter in a handful of the plays in Ilkhom's repertoire angered some people in Tashkent. "It's illegal to be gay in Uzbekistan," Beattie notes. "And of course there's a severe prohibition against it in Islam, as there is in Judaism and Christianity."

"White White Black Stork" tells a story of love thwarted by religion, custom and taboo. A second play to be performed on this tour, "Ecstasy With the Pomegranate," is a dance-theater work, based on the life of painter Aleksandr Nikolaev. Both are presented in Russian with English supertitles at ACT.

Blogger Bill W of GaySeattle.blogspot calls the show "politically the most important performance for Seattle in a long time" and urges readers to see the show.

His summary of the story:

White White Black Stork is really very different from Romeo and Juliet. It is a story about a boy who falls in love with another boy, but submits to an arranged marriage to a girl, who also has another love. The vehement disapproval by the elders is a subject that spans across cultural boundaries and will seem all too familiar to many.

In her review of the ACT production, Seattle Times theater critic Misha Berson notes that, even in today's Uzbekistan, the subject of homosexuality remains controversial, culturally and politically. So by our own culture's standard, what may seem like a tame evocation of same-sex attraction was actually a risky endeavor for Ilkhom artistic head and part-time Seattle resident Weil.

Consider too that the play's forced marriage of Makhzum and Makhichehra, and the enraged reactions of family members to adolescent nonconformity, is still in force in many tradition-bound communities around the world -- and not just those steeped in Muslim orthodoxy, Berson writes.

She concludes that "White White Black Stork" is not a polemic, but rather a piece of theater with a refined and sophisticated aesthetic. Such enhancements as the simple white costuming and the beguiling original music of piping flutes and brooding chords are impressive.

The Seattle stand spans 31 performances and involves more than two dozen Uzbek theater artists.

To promote Ilkhom's appearances, ACT placed its first-ever Russian-language ads in an area Russian newspaper and is arranging artist interviews at a local Russian-language radio station.

Ilkhom will make four short U.S. stops after Seattle in April and May, at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, Indiana U., San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Miami U. in Oxford, Ohio.

Full article: Uzbek company stages in Seattle - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety
Pain of forbidden love in Ilkhom Theatre's "White White Black Stork" | Seattle Times