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Assimilation & Smoke and Shadows

A New York Times article tells me this morning that a freeze on visas has made it all but impossible to immigrate from dozens of countries. Student and work visas have also declined. In this context, Word For Word’s production of E.L. Doctorow’s 2010 story Assimilation, set somewhere in Brooklyn, couldn’t be more relevant. At the start busboy Ramon’s world is turned upside down when his boss, Borislav, suggests arranging a green card marriage with his niece. It is desirable to be an American.

Ramon’s tough, incarcerated brother Leon advises him to take the deal. With the money he could go to film school. In a simple dining room in another time and another place, Ramon busses tables of “big people with loud voices and bad manners.” It isn’t said that they are Russian, but they sound like it.
William Rogue, Søren Oliver, Stacy Ross and Brady Morales-Woolery - Photos Kayleigh McCollum
Stacy Ross as Anya delivers the perfect accent and disdainful attitude as the restaurant owner Borislav’s wife. Brady Morales-Woolery’s Ramon projects the wide-eyed look of someone who can’t believe what’s happening to him, but runs with it. Rudy Guerrero’s Leon is street smart and successful at whatever it is he does under the radar. In his large apartment he entertains the beautiful people in the grandest fashion. I loved the scene when the beautiful people were dancing, chatting and sipping cocktails.

Ramon, upset that he is not getting his three thousand dollars yet for the marriage arrangement complains. Borislav tells him, “This is family, the daughter of my late uncle. I have entrusted you. We are trying to give her a life here where there is hope.”

Tatyana Tolstaya’s 2018 Smoke and Shadows imagines a New England college town where a Russian visiting professor has her eyes on the American professor across a smoke-filled student café. She says they are having an affair.
William Rogue, Stacy Ross, Rudy Guerrero and Søren Oliver - Photos Kayleigh McCollum
This is a terrific piece for Stacy Ross to display her talent. She shows her contempt for Emma (charming Kayla McConnell), the professor's wife. Or perhaps it’s just her distaste for the hot buckwheat that Emma brings to faculty gatherings that annoys her. Sound designer Cliff Caruthers’ choice of music interspersed in the play is perfect! A little Klezmer, a little Russian folk, it lifts the mood. Brady Morales-Woolery’s American professor Eric seems a little dazed – or is it dazzled? – by the visiting Russian professor.

The Russian professor recites a litany of things she will need to wear and places she will need to go in order to discover and be American. With another coffee and another cigarette, she also puzzles over her attraction to Eric. She gradually begins to imagine ways to purge him from her life. And she thinks, “Freedom is precious, as every American knows.”

Word For Word has created mesmerizing theater from short stories, poetry and chapters from novels for 33 years without changing a word of the texts. Assimilation is another stellar example of the amazing theater they produce. See it for its style and timeliness.

Assimilation by E.L. Doctorow and Smoke and Shadows by Tatyana Tolstaya, directed by Rotimi Agbabiaka, set by Mikiko Uesugi, costumes by Alina Bokovikova, lighting by Ray Oppenheimer, sound by Cliff Caruthers - Photos Kayleigh McCollum. Word For Word at Z-Space, San Francisco – to November 8, 2026.

Info: http://www.zspace.org

Cast: Rudy Guerrero, Kayla McConnell, Brady Morales-Woolery, Søren Oliver, William Rogue, and Stacy Ross.

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