‘The Hotel Play’ Offers Immersive Evening in Real Setting [Review]

Playwrights hope to get audiences emotionally involved in the characters they create. The creative talent behind “The Hotel Play,” physically involve the audience by offering an immersive evening staged in a real hotel setting.

Opening April 1 and running through April 16, the work takes place at the Radisson Hotel Midtown, by University of Southern California. “The Hotel Play” is presented in six actual rooms, adjacent to minimize walking, and poolside.

The audience joins in the production in a live action role-playing (LARP) evening. Each attendee is given a nametag and enters the festivities as members of the Class of 1992, gathering for their 25th reunion and observing the actors’ interaction. The actors play students from the racially and culturally diverse graduating class or their family members.

Attendees are divided into groups. They enter each hotel room, for a prescribed period, to get to know the characters. and their stories. A scene plays out in each room illuminating what happened in high school, the Los Angeles riots that year (after the Rodney King decision), and where they are at now. Like all reunions, the alumni have returned with hopes of rekindling relationships, desires to settle scores, and wounds that need soothing.

Diverse Issues and Stories

The riots (or race relations) affect each character’s story. Besides reminding Angelenos about the period, it does give pause to consider diversity and race relations today versus then. Here are some of the storylines presented:

• Married couple Hana and Anthony, a black man and white woman (played by Melissa Greenspan and Stevie Johnson) are interrupted by the arrival of her mother, Sarah (Joanie Marx). The religious Jewish family considered Hana to be dead (and even sat shiva) for marrying Anthony.
• In another room, Latina Ava (Mariana Marroquin ) is getting ready for the party when her son, Benny (Moises Castro), stops by. He is clearly hostile towards Ava, who used to be his father Adam.
• Wheelchair-bound Korean-American Philip (Ryan Moriarty) greets his former girlfriend, biracial Ruth (Tamika Katon-Donegal). He was paralyzed saving her cousin during the riot, but his cousin Nari was killed and haunts him (Natasha Liu).
• Never married Bel (Brenda Banda) is nervously getting ready to see the man she has pined for all these years. She tells her story to a sympathetic hotel employee, Rasha (Elmira Rahim), who immigrated from her war torn region of the world.

After intermission, the audience and casts from each room gather by the hotel pool, where each storyline continues. The characters from different rooms meet up to face their other classmates, past, and current life.

Diverse Team

The Playwrights’ Arena and Center Theatre Group commissioned the unusual theatrical presentation. Jon Lawrence Rivera conceived and directed the show. Adding to the diverse stories is the writers’ diverse perspectives. A different female playwright wrote each storyline in “The Hotel Play.” The eclectic group included Paula Cizmar, Velian Hasu Houston, Nahal Navidar, Jennifer Maisel, Julie Oni, Janine Salinas Schoenberg, and Laurie Woolery.

The final work is uneven. However,“The Hotel Play” offers an enjoyable evening of immersive theater in a real setting. One thing that did distract (or add more reality) was police activity in the area Saturday night with helicopters circling. The choppers made it hard to hear, but did punctuate the talk about the riots. Ultimately, the play (and current news headlines) show that, while a lot has changed since the 1992 riots, more attention needs to be paid to diversity – whether about gender, race, or physical ability.

By Dyanne Weiss

Sources:
Performance April 1, 2017
Center Theatre Group: Site-Specific, Immersive New Production from Playwrights’ Arena “The Hotel Play” Opens This Saturday, April 1 At 8 P.M.
Playwrights Arena

Top photo of (L-R) Elmira Rahim and Brenda Banda in “The Hotel Play,”courtesy of Playwrights’ Arena
Inset photo of (L-R) Joanie Marx, Melissa Greenspan and Stevie Johnson in “The Hotel Play,” courtesy of Playwrights’ Arena.