The premise of “Rheology” is simultaneously simple and preposterous: A theater practitioner asks his mother to enact her own death.
As the writer, director and performer Shayok Misha Chowdhury says in the off-Broadway play, the audience is gathered at Midtown’s Playwrights Horizons for a “kind of exposure therapy” where his mother will simulate dying to test his hypothesis that he could not survive without her. This strong commitment to the scientific method comes from his mother, Bulbul Chakraborty, an acclaimed physicist who teaches at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.
Both Chowdhury and Chakraborty play themselves in “Rheology,” an experimental theater piece stunningly mixed with a physics lecture. If you were concerned as to how a theoretical physicist fares with acting on stage, don’t be: Chakraborty won an Obie Award — one of off- and off-off-Broadway’s highest honors — for her performance during the play’s run at the Bushwick Starr last spring.
Chakraborty is right at home in the opening sequence, a lecture with bright house lights where she gives an overview of her theories on sand. According to Chakraborty, sand is interesting because it can flow like a liquid when poured but hardens into a solid when in a dune, which makes it fragile matter. While Chakraborty focuses on how sand rearranges into a solid when external force is applied, Chowdhury stages “Rheology” to explore how he himself will react to his mother’s death.
It seems like a shaky link, but it comes alive through the passion the mother and son have for their respective subjects. With her natural stage presence, Chakraborty is the type of professor who would make any student interested through her sheer enthusiasm. Even I, someone with less-than-fond memories of Advanced Placement Physics class, found myself charmed by Chakraborty’s love for sand and its properties.
Chowdhury’s artistic process is equally clear, manifesting after his mother’s lecture when “Rheology” transforms into a look behind his directorial choices as he gives his mother performance notes to make her death sufficiently emotional. He stages the event to become more and more melodramatic until it devolves into fervorous Bollywood-level zeal, with Chowdhury wide-eyed and draped in a shawl over his mother’s body.
His hysterics grow equal parts comical and destructive, helped by Mextly Couzin and Masha Tsimring’s neon lighting and Krit Robinson’s set design featuring a blackboard with lit-up chalk scribbles. With the entire play underscored by the incredibly real truth that Chakraborty, in her 70s, will pass away soon, “Rheology” keeps a tragic sense of foreboding throughout: Will Chowdhury transform in the same way when his mother dies in real life?
The play explores an undefined future after the death of a loved one through staging both performers’ reactions to death. After Chowdhury’s intense delusion near the start, it’s equally moving to see a later sequence in which he immerses himself in an onstage sand pit with a sense of childlike wonder. As he bathes himself in the sand, Couzin and Tsimring’s lighting shifts to a mellow gold that sets each grain aglow.
While high praise must be given to the son for the intricate concept and staging of “Rheology,” it is the mother who truly steals the show. The entire play is anchored by Chakraborty’s touching performance that conveys, above all else, her love for her son. Never have I seen such a tender relationship onstage before — Chakraborty’s verite acting truly floored me in a closing monologue, delivered no-holds-barred directly to her son, where she comforts his fears of her death. With all the love of a mother behind her, she implores Chowdhury to recognize that, for him, life goes on after death. For her? Well, Chakraborty will live on in the memories of her son, and all those who met her in “Rheology.”
“Rheology” is running at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater until May 16. Tickets are available online, and $29 tickets are available through Playwrights Horizons’ free student membership.
Contact Ethan Li at [email protected].