Sanctuary City is a gripping, thrill-ride of a production – at turns achingly tender, genuinely funny, and viscerally hard-hitting. From the first breath on stage, the audience is pulled into the lives of B (Junior Nyong’o) and G (Emilie Maureen Hanson) and it’s such a real, raw and revealing journey, that by play’s end, I feel like my heart and psyche have traveled the distance with them - it’s one of the most psychologically immersive experiences I’ve had in theatre in a long time.
Two teenagers on a bare, black set. It’s late. G is at B’s window, hoping to be let in. G seeks safety from the cold, dark world outside. B hesitates, then in recognition, he lets her in. After this brief beginning, we are immediately propelled through a collage of quick, intertwined scenes, at times jump cutting and leaping over each other, hurtling us through time. So that when there is a moment of stillness or pure laughter or awkward tension – they hit deep and then disappear – fleeting fragments that flash before us. It’s an evocatively efficient way to experience the trajectory of B and G’s deepening connection.
The first half of the play absorbs our attention as we piece together that B and G are high school students in New Jersey during the years 2001-2003. Children of immigrants, neither of whom come from families with guaranteed legal status, they find a safe harbor with each other. G seeks escape from her mom’s abusive boyfriend and B is left alone after his mom returns to her native country after 9/11. Sharing shelter, food and companionship – they become a source of stability for one another. They understand the layers of life each is dealing with – not only normal teen stuff, but also the anxiety of being deported at a moment’s notice or the possibility of isolating separation. And through each other they create a sense of home – a human space where they can be vulnerable and playful and vent and grow up and discover who they are together and as individuals.
When G becomes naturalized, she offers to marry B so that he too, can eventually obtain citizenship. As G heads off on scholarship to college in Boston, their promise to each other’s future is sincere and caring. Sanctuary is the mutual hope their friendship makes possible.
The stage then strikingly transforms into a fully furnished, realistic one-bedroom apartment. B and G enter, and it’s clear that something has starkly shifted in their relationship. They are each edgier, harder, and more wary of the other. The tension is palpable. And for the second half, we experience in real-time their first in-person meeting in over three years. We instinctively realize that the first half was stylized memory and this now is their current day reality. Or perhaps the suddenly detailed depiction of B’s place and its furnishings, plus a third character’s very American name, suggest the pervasiveness of the materialism and Americanism that seep into everything despite our best intentions. To share more about who Henry (Josh Kenji) is or the plot twist that his presence piques would spoil the power of this second half.
