Bridge and Tunnel (review)

In a city like Berkeley, immigrants are easy to come by, and as Sarah Jones, dressed as an old homeless woman named "Miss Lady," urged theatergoers to keep an open mind and turn off their cell phones, she was greeted with nods and smiles. In her one-woman show Bridge and Tunnel, Jones performs a series of character monologues meant to represent a cross section of New York's immigrant population. Jones switches characters by changing into sets of clothing hung on brightly-colored set pieces. The premise of Bridge and Tunnel is a poetry reading; onstage a sign reads "I. A.M. A. P.O.E.T. T.O.O," an acronym that stands for "Immigrant and Multi-culturalist American Poets or Enthusiasts Traveling Toward Optimistic Openness." In Bridge and Tunnel Jones personifies the many immigrants of different ages, races, ethnicities, and sexes who meet annually to share their cross-cultural love of poetry.

The play runs ninety minutes without an intermission, and in order to connect the various monologues Jones embodies a Pakistani master of ceremonies humorously named Muhammad Ali. Ali's monologues introduce the other characters but also gesture to the play's post-9/11 subtext: before the poetry reading commences, Bridge and Tunnel's audience overhears Ali on the phone with his wife discussing a pending investigation by the Department of Homeland Security. The character's cheerful attitude is a tribute to immigrants who flourish in spite of America's ambivalence and suspicion toward its newest arrivals.

Throughout Bridge and Tunnel Jones addresses how American perceptions of immigrants differ based on country of origin, class, and religious practices. One character, a man in a wheelchair named Juan José, tells a story about the poverty that forces him to leave Mexico and the tragic border crossing that kills his lover. His tale quiets the audience, while an Australian woman's searing poem about an ex-lover solicits raucous laughter. Jones also performs the part of a Jordanian woman named Habiba who wears a head covering. Habiba tells an unexpectedly lighthearted story about her childhood spent listening to the Beatles and writing love poetry to a boy next door. Jones brings the characters' seemingly unrelated stories into conversation with one another and challenges the audience to find connections. By juxtaposing unlike stories, she also highlights the breadth of American immigrant experiences. "Bridge and Tunnel" is a pejorative term sometimes used to describe immigrant neighborhoods in New York; Jones appropriates the expression to address the ways that immigrants are not only connected through the hope that they find in America, but also through American anger and fear regarding cultural difference.

Most of the monologues have an explicitly progressive message of racial equality and cultural tolerance. As an actress and writer following in the footsteps of Anna Deavere Smith, Jones also interviews people in order to create characters, listening to their words and intonation. Smith became famous by conversing with people after tragedies like the LA riots and reconstructing their interviews verbatim for the stage; Jones crafts her own monologues and invents the "Bridge and Tunnel Café" in order to bring her characters' lives together. Acting the part of a Vietnamese slam poet, Jones sharply criticizes the stereotype of the "Model Minority" that obscures the different ethnicities and experiences designated by the term "Asian." Playing a Jamaican actress, Jones quips that the two opportunities that America provides for Jamaican immigrants are becoming Secretary of State or taking care of children, two names for the same job. Both of these monologues resist the limitations that American expectations put on immigrant lives and identities, and each reflects Jones's desire to put different perspectives on stage.

Though the presentation of such a variety of immigrant experiences is noteworthy, Jones's ability to disguise her own racial and sexual identity while performing each character...