Review: ROOF OF THE WORLD at Kansas City Repertory Theatre

Visually overwhelming describes Kansas City Repertory Theatre's world premiere production of "Roof Of The World." Director Eric Rose, Set Designer Jack Magaw, and Projection Designer Jeffrey Cady have collaborated to establish an epic world where competing actions set thousands of miles apart can occupy the same stage and seamlessly move from one space and time to another.

There is much excellent content in "Roof of the World" now traveling down a proposed long road to a Broadway opening. Playwright D. Tucker Smith has rewritten the play from its first production in 2007 at Duke University under the title "The Great Game." Whichever title is used, the playwright assumes the audience is familiar with certain historical facts that may be a step too far.

A fine cast fights admirably through the travails of its characters to produce credible performances. The play tells a true life history lesson, overlain with by a fictional spy tale, combined with international intrigue, a love story, a lesson on racial intolerance, discovery and resolution of family graft, a sex scandal, an attempted rape by a family member, and a search for roots by the descendants of the main characters several generations removed from the main action. Got it? That is a lot to process in two and a half hours... maybe too much.

Let us start with the two titles. "The Great Game" (the original title) would be probably immediately familiar to a UK audience. Not so much in the U.S.

Under Queen Victoria around 1870, the British Empire approached the zenith of its power. It was said the land holdings of the empire were so worldwide, somewhere daylight was always shining. In Asia, Britain held all of India, Pakistan, Singapore, and Hong Kong plus holdings in Africa west from Palestine. The Brits then fielded the most powerful armed forces in the world mainly to protect against existential threats to its far flung commercial properties.

British business interests in India feared that Czarist Russia threatened British dominion from the northern side of the Himalayan Mountains. Secret spies were dispatched under the guise of civilian explorers to discover and document possible invasion routes to an imagined feared Cossack horde. Afghanistan was the buffer should this fear ever become reality. It was hoped the war could be fought to a stalemate with superior advance knowledge of the terrain by mostly local troops led by western officers. Sound familiar?

"Roof of the World" refers to the area near the Khyber Pass. It is in the Himalayan Mountains area near Tibet and Mt. Everest, the highest places on earth thus the "Roof Of The World."

The protagonist of the play is an actual British explorer named George Hayward. The real George Hayward was born of a well-considered British middle class family. George Hayward Sr. was land agent for the Earl of Cardigan. George Sr. passed away and orphaned his son when George Jr. was 15 years old. This ended his comfortable school life. The Earl maintained an interest his dead retainer's boy. In 1859, the Earl purchased a military commission for George in the Royal Irish Fusiliers. Following several years of military training, George and his regiment were posted to greater India in 1862. George Hayward Jr. resold his commission three years later. As near as we can tell, George Jr. had developed a love for India and opted for a life as an adventurer. In that day and age, British adventurers trekked with large, expensive retinues. Think an old Tarzan movie with all the bearers and porter and tents and equipment. George distinguished his expeditions by sallying forth with what he could carry on his back and one or two assistants. He was more focused on accomplishing assigned goals then in leaving an historical impression.

By 1868, George had hooked up with London's Royal Geological Society (RGS). The Society was not directly connected with the British state, but its members did often have commercial interests to protect in the Indian sub-continent. One of these members with connections to commerce and the military was a man named Rawlinson. He was the point person who directed George Hayward to map the possible mountain conflict areas and acted as his paymaster.

The British divided India into states or small kingdoms. Each area had a Raj (King). Travelers were required to present credentials and ask permission to cross these kingdoms and this could turn into a lengthy process. These feudal Kings were aware of the "Great Game" scenarios and those near the Himalaya Mountains sometimes hedged their bets. In addition to agreements with their British occupiers, they also may have had friendly contact with the Russians. This could complicate their granting of permissions to cross their kingdoms and hold up travelers for reasons not immediately obvious .

Anyway, sometime prior to 1870, George was asked to map the High Pamirs. On his way to doing so, he was attacked and beheaded in the Yasin Valley. George was posthumously awarded the Victoria Medal. Briefly, that explains most of the historical basis behind the play. D. Tucker Smith uses the history as the jumping off place for her play.

The way she has written the story makes it a play within a play within a play. The audience enters the theater and faces a huge, ornate, cube set stage center. The play opens with a single spotlight focused on a woman in modern dress (Vanessa Severo). We find out the year is 1967. She attempts intercession with a fine art auctioneer. She badly wants possession of a single painting and is willing to share a complex story about the painting and its author to get ownership. We see this un-named actress at intervals throughout the play. It turns out that she is a descendant of the play's protagonist.

In any great adventure piece, the author needs some obligatory characters. They are the protagonist George (Rusty Sneary), his love interest Safia Das (Abnjali Bhimani), the friend/sidekick Shaw (Jason Chanos), the disreputable brother Edward (Brent Harris), and the villain Rawlinson (Mark Robbins) plus a variety of other characters.

After the appearance of the unknown narrator, the play flashes its audience back to late 1869. George and Shaw escape from a prison that holds them for unknown reasons. In the process, they assist another escapee, a young boy. George is on a quest for the Royal Geographic Society. Shaw is anxious to return to his Tea plantation. The boy comes along for the ride.

It turns out their fellow escapee is not a boy at all. She is a female spy for the British Colonial government named Safia Das. She is only disguised as a boy. All three make it to Shaw's plantation. Predictably, George falls in love with Safia, the beautiful former spy. They marry.

George insists he must complete his RGS assigned quest. Safia discourages him. In her previous occupation as a spy, she knows the area and its dangers. She at first demands to go along, but is refused. She is certain that George will be killed if he attempts the trek alone. It turns out she is correct. George treks off for the high mountains.

In a last ditch effort to save George, Safia decides to meet his family, and ask them to exert their huge influence and help her save George. (In this version of the history, George is the second son of a wealthy member of the British nobility.)

Have you gotten all of this yet? Anyway, Safia arrives in England. The family meets her at the ship. It turns out that George already has a fiancé. George's Mother is appalled that he has married out of his race. Brother Edward has stolen all George's inheritance and he is a cad anyway. It is about at this point that the second flashback ends.

England and India are now operating in real time (1870) on two parallel tracts except for the occasional flash forward to the unknown girl arguing with the art auctioneer. The play struggles to and finally reaches a resolution. Safia sails back to India.

Scene changes are fascinatingly achieved by spinning the huge cube on a turn table. Each side of the cube is cleverly hinged to reveal a plethora of individual sets while the entire stage is lit by great and strong projections. The effect of the cube spinning and the projections projecting is dazzling. Somehow the designer has found a way to hold the cube in place and spin the ground under the actors. The effect astounds.

This discussion has become much longer than first intended. And it reflects this play's potential difficulty with a prospective audience. There are just too many themes and too many time frames to keep track of.

The "Roof of the World" has much to recommend it. The actors and all the technical wizardly are great. Eric Rosen's stage pictures and management of the action are worth seeing. The detail above is offered as stuff you must know to appreciate the complicated story. They are also challenges the playwright must hurdle on the road to Broadway if the final version of the play is to be successful.

KC Rep's production of "Roof of the World" continues its run through March 27 at the Copaken Stage in the H&R Block Building in downtown Kansas City. Tickets are available on the Kansas City Repertory Theatre web site www.kcrep.org or by telephone at 816-235-2700.

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