Fifty Boxes of Earth From Theater Mu is Good In Spite of its Missteps at Park Square Theatre

Fifty Boxes of Earth by Ankita Raturi is having its world premier from Theater Mu at Park Square Theatre in St. Paul. It is a two hour play with a lot of interpretive dance that would be greatly improved with four words Ninety Minutes, Less Movement. At its heart it is a play about xenophobia and transphobia, but it loses its clarity by trying to force some sort of variation of the Dracula legend upon its narrative. The story revolves around a community garden in which three characters interact. Q has just moved to this country and brings with them 50 boxes of earth. This is a take on Dracula’s 50 boxes of his native soil that he needs to fill his coffins with. Q meets John, who manages the community garden in which Q has reserved a plot. The third character is John’s daughter Mina, who prefers to be called Harker. Q is the other, John is the bigot, and Harker is the way the world should be. John takes an instant distrust to Q, while Harker and Q bond over the planting of their garden and talk of Q’s son who will be coming to live with them after the garden is ready. The garden grows strange things and in foreign dirt, so John does everything he can to sabotage Q’s garden, even trying to destroy it.

Raturi’s script builds effective relationships between the three characters and that is its strength. The weakness as I’ve mentioned is the attempt to somehow tie this to the Dracula mythology. I know they are trying to view that through a modern lense, but nothing really matches up in any way that justifies the connection. Make it a alternate world and it still works as a modern day fairytale or myth. Director KT Shorb accompanies the narrative with five ensemble players, choreographed by Ananya Chatterjea, who dance about and seem to represent the plants of the garden, or the gardens mental health. I’m not the best with interpretive dance. Though I didn’t dislike what the ensemble did necessarily, I do think there was too much of it. The story doesn’t need any of it, but it would have been better if it merely occurred during the action of the play, but it felt at multiple times, including the opening, that it was merely adding to the runtime. Those more into dance might feel differently. Technically the show is excellent with nice set design work by Mina Kinukawa, Puppet Designs and builds by Oanh Vu & Andrew Young, very immersive sound design and musical compositions by Katharine Horowitz, and effective Lighting design by Karin Olson.

The five Ensemble players are Eliana Durnbaugh, Kiko Laureano, Mars Niemi, Alyssa Taiber, and Taylor West and while they do what they are asked very well, I think they are over utilized. Q’s plants grow very rapidly and without having either very elaborate props or frequent long blackouts, the ensemble is necessary to produce those changes on stage and that alone would have been effective. The problem is that it feels like the Director and Choreographer felt the need to justify the dancers presence and so expanded the movement into something that detracts from the story. The three leads are all very compelling as is the central plot and the themes it explores, it doesn’t benefit from a supposed Dracula connection. Che’Li plays Q who is the stand in for Dracula, if Dracula wasn’t a villain, didn’t need to avoid sunlight, didn’t drink the blood of their victims, or really do anything mean, cruel, or… wait how is Q Dracula again? Alex Galick plays John who we assume must be a stand in for Jonathan Harker in Bram Stoker’s novel, except here he’s a terrible xenophobic fact denier whose actions are unconscionable. Mina Moua plays Mina aka Harker and the relationship she and Che’Li develop in the roles is the heart of the play and it’s greatest accomplishment. Galick’s performance as John is superb, I know because I got so angry at him during the performance that I caught myself giving him the finger. When an actor makes you react that viscerally it’s usually a combination of the actors talent and the writer’s skill at character creation.

Ultimately there are more positives than negatives and I do recommend the show. I write so much about the misteps because they are what holds it from going from a good play to a very good play. The truth is, you don’t have to change anything but the characters names and no one in a million years would draw any comparison to Dracula. The fifty boxes of earth can work as it’s own device in this modern day myth, the number which comes from Stoker’s story can be changed to four, considering that is the number of boxes they actually use in the play. Do that, so you are not distracting the audience by having them try and create in their mind a correlation to the famous novel that just wont come into focus. Honestly, the story doesn’t need it. Trim 15 to 20 minutes, most of it movement unrelated to anything needed in terms of set and plot, and you have a very good, maybe even great play. As it is the greatness is there and hopefully those who read this review and attend the show will have their expectations set appropriately and will ignore any thoughts of vampires and just enjoy the story at hand and know that the dancing, while too long, doesn’t ever go on ridiculously too long.

Fifty Boxes of Earth runs through March 16th at Park Square Theatre in St. Paul. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.theatermu.org/fifty-boxes

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