She creates a multi-dimensional woman, with nuance and layers, and the scenes she has with Jacob Nichols as Kevin are packed with emotion. His actors are all adept in creating three-dimensional characters and in bringing an urgency and importance to the individuals they portray and the actions they make.Īs Barbara, Marlene Galan Woods delivers a stunning performance of a woman who, she believes, is doing what any other mother would do to protect her child and ensure his safety. While this doesn't add to the realism of the play, it does provide some impactful commentary.Ĭhristopher Haines' direction ensures the emotional impact of the scenes resonates. This allows the piece to be fast paced, with no lengthy scene changes, and Brooks also uses the theatrical conceit of having individuals in both scenes provide a few choice comments on the action that takes place in the other locations. Embassy in Tehran and ones that take place later in the Timms' home in Wisconsin. The one-act, 85-minute play is smartly written with no extraneous material and it seamlessly shifts between scenes set in the U.S. The students also comment that "we treat our guests well." With eerie dialogue like that and the constant presence of guns aimed at the Americans, the play continually reminds the audience that there is danger lurking and that you never quite know what passionate people may do for their cause. Brooks also reminds us that, according to the Iranians, they are students, not terrorists, and the Americans aren't hostages but their guests. Did the Iranian students let Barbara in to see her son in order to use her for their political advantage, or were they just being humanitarians? Is it better to be patriotic and follow the beliefs of our elected politicians, or to do what you have to do in order to stay alive? But, while it is thought provoking, there is also a constant sense of danger and tension in the piece. The play is not only insightful in showing the individuals behind the story but also intriguing in how Brooks poses some interesting questions. for speaking out against the actions of President Carter and other politicians who seemed to not be doing anything to ensure the hostages' release. She was viewed as a possible spy on both sides and was even harassed, with a constant mob outside her house, and called a traitor when she came back to the U.S. She had to see him in person to tell him not to give up. We also get a better understanding of Barbara Timm, a woman who knew that her job was to ensure her child's safety. Brooks shows two of these students, including their famous spokesperson, Tehran Mary, and lets us understand the reasons behind their actions. They were protesting against the Shah, who was recently overthrown and who used fear and his secret police to intimidate those around him, and who was allowed into the U.S. as terrorists, the majority of them were highly educated students, some educated in the States. While the protestors who took over the Embassy were portrayed in the U.S. While it is a fictitious recount of this factual meeting, Hostage proves to be a quite insightful study in peeling back our perceptions of the people at the center of this famous incident to show that there is much more to their stories than we first knew. The play premiered last year in Los Angeles and makes its Arizona debut in an exceptional, thought-provoking production at iTheatre Collaborative that features a stellar performance by Marlene Galan Woods as Barbara Timm.īrooks' play focuses mainly on the meeting between Barbara and Kevin and the interactions she had with the students in the Embassy in Tehran, as well as the aftermath the Timms' encountered when they returned home. Michelle Kholos Brooks' play Hostage is a tautly written drama that focuses on this meeting between mother and son and expertly shows both sides of the story while giving insight into the plight of both the Iranian students and the Americans involved. The craziest part of this story isn't that the couple traveled thousands of miles without knowing if they'd see the 19-year-old Kevin Hermening, who was the youngest hostage taken, or that they got to Tehran right before there was a travel ban and were there when a rescue attempt to extract the hostages resulted in the deaths of eight American servicemen, but that the terrorists actually let Barbara see her son. Six months after the Iranian hostage crisis started, Barbara Timm, the mother of a Marine guard who was one of the hostages, and her husband traveled to Iran to try to see her son. Over 39 years ago in November of 1979, 52 Americans were taken hostage by a group of Iranian college students at the U.S. Also see Gil's review of Audra McDonald with Seth Rudetsky
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