Description: A gay man reeling from the sudden death of his longtime lover meets an exotic couple, Hassan and Sylvia, who lure him into a spicy soup from which he may or may not emerge in one piece.

First Produced: 2010
Date Added: 11/28/2011
Content Advisory: Contains adult situations and strong language
Keywords: Gay and lesbian  Romance  Grief and mourning  Single Set  Mostly Male Characters  Large Cast Size 
1 Act, 90 Minutes
2 Females, 5 Males

A Note from the Editor:

Hassan and Sylvia was named Best Play of the 2010 Fresh Fruit Festival, and Marilyn Bernard was honored as Best Actress.

Casting/Production Comments:

For sheet music and recordings of the song “Let’s Make a Deal” (music by Brad Howell Houghton; lyrics by Manuel Igrejas), please email Brad Howell Houghton at nycbhh@gmail.com.

NOTE: Hassan and Sylvia is fully protected by copyright law and is subject to royalty. All inquiries concerning production, publication, reprinting or use of this play in any form should be addressed to manny@mannyigrejas.com.

Original Production Information

Hassan and Sylvia was first presented by Emaginer as part of the Fresh Fruit Festival (Frank Calo, Artistic Director; Louis Lopardi, Executive Director) on July 14, 2010, at the Cherry Lane Studio Theatre, New York City, with the following cast and credits:

NARRATOR: Erik Kever Ryle
X: John Wernke
OZZIE: Casey Burden
HASSAN: Vandit Bhatt
SYLVIA: Karin de la Penha
VELMA: Marilyn Bernard
JIMMY: Casey Burden

Director: David Hilder
Production Stage Manager: Julie Watson
Photographer: Web Begole

Review by Martin Denton

Some plays linger in the mind long after you see them, and, onionlike, reveal new layers as you peel away what you thought you saw on the surface. Such a work is Manuel Igrejas's Hassan and Sylvia, which is premiering at the Fresh Fruit Festival in a beautifully realized production helmed by David Hilder. I can't stop thinking about it, and finding myself surprised by the new discoveries I make as I ponder it.

It begins in a tiny studio apartment in a place called Cedar Chips, New Jersey (this is not a real town, as far as I can tell), in the outer suburbs miles from Manhattan. When the lights come up, we discover a man lying on the floor of this apartment—not dead, we are immediately assured, but dead inside, weighed down by terrible grief and, we come to understand, loneliness, desperation, and desolation. He's 33 years old, and his lover of 15 years-standing died a few months ago (the lover, Vincenzo, was a much older man, and died of a heart attack). There was no will, and so Vincenzo's blood relations sold Vincenzo's house. Our protagonist was essentially written out of Vincenzo's history, and that's why he's alone in this tiny apartment, plodding away at a day job he hates and watching reruns of The Golden Girls at night.

At this point, I thought I knew what kind of play this was going to be, and I was intrigued: here at last was a drama to really explore the effects of a society where same-sex partners are mostly denied legal/civil rights that opposite-sex partners take for granted. But Igrejas has something entirely different in mind...

The scene shifts to a second-rate piano bar on West 46th Street, where our hero has come to hear his friend Ozzie sing. Also in this establishment are a striking couple—a glamorous-looking middle-aged woman and a younger, handsome, swarthy gentleman who we will soon learn is of Moroccan descent. They are the Hassan and Sylvia of the play's title, and they hone in on our leading man, inviting him to join them at their table and quickly seducing him. They seem to epitomize an unattainable lifestyle that most of us only read about in the trendiest of magazines: Hassan says he makes parties, and Sylvia doesn't say right away what she does at all, other than help Hassan with his English and serve as a kind of chaperone/buffer for his effusive and excessive childlike exuberance.

I don't want to give away too much more about what happens, except to tell you that Igrejas keeps you guessing about just who everyone really is in this play. It's a story, ultimately, about desire, and what we're willing to do for it; it's also, startlingly, an exploration of what it means to be a whore, and Igrejas demonstrates rather conclusively that while we think we know all about that thank you very much, in fact there are subtleties and nuances to the topic that should make us think twice before we judge anyone who sells some part of themselves to try to realize some security in their lives. Hassan and Sylvia, as unsentimental a play as I've ever seen, is also one of the most humanist. It's also very grown-up (which is not the same as "adult," though the talk about sexuality is frank and uncensored).

Igrejas and Hilder play with the fourth wall a lot; I've been seeing a bunch of magic realism plays lately and in its way, Hassan and Sylvia is another example of that genre, as its characters move rather more freely through time and space than your average earthbound human.

Six actors do fine work to tell this jolting, intimate story. Eric Kever Ryle is the Narrator, and also plays various waiters (who may in fact be the same waiter). Vandit Bhatt plays Hassan with disarming, youthful charm, and Karin de la Penha is riveting as the enigmatic Sylvia. Casey Burden plays Ozzie and the entirely different Jimmy (Hassan's driver). Marilyn Bernard stops the show (literally, at least at the performance I was at) as a meddlesome old beggar woman who, like everyone else in the play, is not at all what she seems. And anchoring the play firmly and adroitly is the charismatic John Wernke as the protagonist, who is billed simply as "X" in the program—it was not until the very end of the play that I realized we'd never learned his name, and it speaks directly to what Igrejas accomplishes here that we can get to know and like someone as much as we do "X" without knowing who he is.

This is a ripe, provocative, and rewarding play that is a true feather in the cap of the Fresh Fruit Festival. I hope it has a life beyond the festival, and also that the Fresh Fruit keep encouraging genuinely challenging work about characters who happen to be gay.

reviewed at the 2010 Fresh Fruit Festival

Excerpt from Hassan and Sylvia

X

Ozzie is a chum. He’s very talented.

HASSAN

We will see. And what do you do when you are not being a chum?

X

I just go to my job.

HASSAN

A job? What is your job?

X

Oh, it’s boring. Pays the rent. That’s all. How did you two meet?

(HASSAN and SYLVIA look at each other adoringly.)

HASSAN

I am giving this wonderful party at Balthazar and I keep seeing this fascinating woman in the edges of my eyes. I see she is standing alone, so I bring her a glass of champagne.

(He squeezes SYLVIA’s hand.)

SYLVIA

I had come with someone, a terrible man, and he deserted me to talk business with some people. I thought everything so beautiful, so thoughtful. I wondered who was responsible for this wonderful party and I kept seeing Hassan at the center of everything, looking very official and displeased—

HASSAN

If I relax for one minute the staff will drink and smoke and put their cigarettes out in the caviar.

SYLVIA

Then Hassan was standing next to me and I knew my life was going to change.

(She runs her hand across HASSAN’s cheek and tugs his ear lobe. HASSAN and SYLVIA gaze at each other lovingly, then turn to X.)

SYLVIA

Hassan has taught me so much.

HASSAN

You teach me so much.

(He raises her hand to his lips.)

X

And you’ve both taught me so much.

HASSAN

Yes?

SYLVIA

Oh, you are wicked.

HASSAN

What is wicked?

SYLVIA

Evil. Bad.

HASSAN

No. Impossible. He is an angel.