IN THE HOUSE OF SARGON
My biggest regret was that we didn’t see more of Zerang the actor, for he’s not only a musician but a performer with tremendous presence and charisma, possessed of a beautifully mobile and expressive face. He’s been performing in Chicago for over 18 years, and that experience seems to have given him a command of the space when he’s acting. But when he’s playing an instrument he has a way of becoming almost invisible, allowing the instrument itself to assume center stage. Here the premiere of Sargon was the first half of the evening, and a wonderful work in progress–Barking Dogs and Deaf Lizards, music for Middle Eastern and East Indian hand drums, played by Zerang and Hamid Drake–was the second half. The invisibility Zerang approaches as a musician suits his somewhat mysterious presence as a performer.
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As the lights come up stage left, we see that Sargon’s hair is out of its ponytail. He looks a little wild. He’s eating nuts or seeds from a brown paper bag and seems consumed by his driving; one eyebrow is up, and he looks slightly demented and disdainful. The young man says, “I don’t recognize this neighborhood . . . ” Sargon says nothing but continues driving. The lights dim, and we see a film projection of Charaf in close-up, her face and head veiled and her eyes moving from side to side, then up and down, melodramatically accompanied by live hissing and moaning. She looks back and forth, and her hands cover her face. When the camera pans back, she seems to be on a dune. We hear a violin, and the figure on-screen begins an undulating, snakelike hand dance.
