vanloan@nyconstage.org

Arabian Night is billed as an erotic urban fantasy. As presented by The Play Company and directed with great panache by Trip Cullman, the play has a phantasmagorical quality that eventually comes to make perfect sense. The young playwright, Roland Schimmelpfenning has a cult following in his native Germany and many of his works have been translated into numerous languages (in this case David Tushingham is responsible for the stylish and witty conversion). It's an evocative mood piece as well as a clever whodunit.

Set in an apartment building on a warm evening in Istanbul (the multi-level design by Louisa Thompson has an appropriately claustrophobic quality), the water pressure above the seventh floor has mysteriously stopped flowing. Hans, the super (played with phlegmatic charm by Stelio Savante) goes to investigate only to find the elevator is also on the blink. Fatima (Roxanna Hope) eagerly awaiting her boyfriend Kakil (a sexy Piter Marek) inadvertently locks herself out of her apartment. Her roommate Franziska (Jicky Schnee) who sleeps so deeply it borders on narcolepsy is passed out on the couch. Neighbor Peter (a beautifully paranoid Brandon Miller) is a peeping-Tom with his eye on the comatose Franziska.

A sort of magic realism soon sets in with Hans transported to the desert and Peter getting trapped in a bottle. The characters never really talk to each other; they simply voice their thoughts. As we put the intersecting stories together, the proceedings begin to border on the surreal. But soon this brainteaser resolves itself in a rather mundane yet somehow satisfying manner. The multi-culti carpet ride is over but not without providing an evening of Turkish delight.

...end