A Perfect Ganesh: In Search of a Healing
Two middle-aged women from Connecticut (Ellen Geer and Melora Marshall) travel to India, weighted down with too much luggage and, more than that, burdened with the sense that they have failed as wives and friends—and especially as mothers. Both have lost sons whose early deaths they feel they could have prevented, whose deaths they have not fully reconciled. Rather than their usual two weeks in the Caribbean, they have decided to take what they hope will be a more spiritual journey, one that will perhaps heal their wounds.
So begins Terrence McNally’s A Perfect Ganesh, now playing through October 7th at Topanga Canyon’s Theatricum Botanicum.
Melora Marshall and Ellen Geer (Photo by Kevin Hudnell)
As the two well-do-do pilgrims travel throughout the vast country, from Mumbai and ultimately to the Ganges and beyond, they encounter the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesha (Mueen Jahan), who takes the guise of one of their fellow travelers after another, young to old, men and women alike. As the god of wisdom, prudence, acceptance, and love, Ganesha nudges his charges toward greater self-awareness and ultimately a newfound self-acceptance they find when transformed by the sight of the Taj Mahal.
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Set against a beautiful tree-covered hillside in Topanga Canyon, Theatricum Botanticum’s stage spreads up into the hills above the stage and off into the woods on one side, making for a refreshing retreat from Saturday’s blistering heat wave.
Ellen Geer and Mueen Jahan (Photo by Kevin Hudnell)
Although written 30 years ago in 1993, McNally’s play touches on elements of racism, homophobia, trauma and loss, and female friendship that seem even more relevant to our current troubled times. One of the women even considers kissing a leper in Bombay to atone for the way she rejected her son, which the thinks may have contributed to his death in a gay bashing.
Read Ed Rampell's "East Meets West Meets Topanga".
A Perfect Ganesh runs in repertory every weekend with Shakespeare’s Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Queen Margaret’s Version of Shakespeare’s War of the Roses. Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 North Topanga Canyon Boulevard, Topanga, California 90290. Box Office 1-310-455-3723 Go here for tickets.
The opinions expressed here are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the Hollywood Progressive.
