March 4 , 1992...The Portland Observer.-Page 7
Portland Observer
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E N T E R T A IN M E N T
Mississippi Masala
1
Mythmaker
by Bill Barber
Newcomer Sarita Choudhury and Acadamy Award winner Denzel
Washington star in Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala, a hot, spicy romance
presented by the Samuel Goldwyn Company
Denzel W ashington is the kind of
man every mother hopes her daughter
will bring home some day. He gradu­
ated from Fordham, in Bronx, NY. He
won the Academy Award for his Por­
trayal o f Trip in "Glory." W ashington
played M alcolm X in the off-Broadway
production o f "When the Chickens came
Home to Roost." He will soon be seen in
Spike Lee's "M alcolm X." In real life,
he is already married to actress/singer
Pauletta Pearson. They have four chil­
dren.
In M ississippi Masala, he plays the
role o f Demetrius, a confident, self-
made man and ow ner of a carpet-clean­
ing company. He is a proud African-
American man who has never lived in
Africa.
A chance traffic accident introduces
him to Mina, (Sarita Choudhoury) a
beautiful young woman whose family
fled Uganda in 1972, under the rule of
Idi Amin. The flashback scenes were
shot on location in the lush countryside
o f Uganda. Their family now lives in
one of the dozens o f Indian-managed
motels that populate the local highways.
Mina is a spirited Indian woman who
has never lived in India.
D em etrius and M ina. D ifferent
races, different cultures, mutual attrac­
tion. The least likely o f couples to
connect.
The title comes from an Indian word.
In India a "Masala" is a group of hot and
colorful spices, potent enough to set
your mouth on fire. "Mississippi Masala"
offers up the peppery mix of an African-
American man and Indian woman whose
lives collide, literally, on a small town
street in Greenwood, Mississippi. They
set a once sleepy Southern town aflame.
As Demetrius and Mina begin their
secret love affair, each is swept into the
other's exotic world. They soon find
themselves at the center o f controversy
and scandal.
Mina's parents Jay (Roshan Seth)
and his wife Kinnu (Sharmila Tagore)
are outraged by the relationship. Mina's
parents have hoped that she would marry
the nice Indian boy Harry (Ashok Lath)
from their inner circle of local friends.
Their is still a degree of bitterness to­
ward African-Americans harking back
to the memories o f being exiled from
their beloved Uganda. The cultural tra­
ditions and religious values also come
into play.
Demetrius isn’t doing much better.
His carpet-cleaning partner, Tyrone
(Charles Dutton - TV's "Roc") is con­
cerned about how the relationship will
effect theirbusiness. 11 also causes some
interesting interchanges with his father
(excellent character-actor Joe Seneca),
his brother (Tico W ells) and his former
girlfriend and "local girl made good"
Alicia (NatalieOliver). The Indiancom-
munity is furious, his business suffers,
the bank wants to repossess his carpet
cleaning van and friends whisper that
he has crossed the color line. However,
Demetrius stands his ground in his be­
lief that a shade o f color is all that
separates he and Mina. "Your skin," he
explains to M ina's irate father, "is just a
few shades lighter than mine."
There is an uneasy frankness about
“ Mississippi M asala.” What emerges is
a poignant, em otional and sometimes
humorous look at the human situation.
A story of exiled hearts in which two
communities share their dreams and
frailties, then finally come to recognize
the sameness in their differences.
A Solo Performance by African-Ameri­
can Actor/Singer Jacqui Sutton
Written and Directed by Judith Catterall
Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center
5340 N. Interstate
March 20-29, 1992
Fri/Sat 8 p.m.; Sunday 2 p.m.
$10 General; $8 Students/Seniors
Sunday Matinees only: S5 All Tickets
Call 823-2000 for Reservations
Jacqui Sutton to Star as Mythmaker
at IFCC
Beginning march 20 and running
for two weekends, an exciting new the­
atre work called M y th m ak er will be
premiering at the Interstate Firehouse
Cultural Center. W ritten and directed
by Judith Catterall, M y th m ak er will
feature a tour de force solo performance
by African American actor/singer Jacqui
Sutton.
M ythmaker is not the first time
Catterall and Sutton have joined forces.
Last season, Catterall wrote a m ono­
logue and com m issioned music for
Sutton to open a piece called In n er
L andscapes. Hailed as “ moving, dra­
matic and inventive theater.” In n er
7 / e u iv t
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Calypso Singer
T h e M ig h ty C h a lk d u s t,” re ­
nowned Calypso singer from Trinidad,
will present a free lccturc/dcmonstra-
tion a t P o rtlan d S tate U n iv ersity
W ednesday, March 11, at 1:30 p.m. in
room 338 Smith Center. He will discuss
"R ituals and Rebellion,” and explore
the role of the political in Caribbean
society and Calypso as a form of social
protest. A reception and a showing of
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SCARFACE
"SMASHINGLY SENSUAL!"
LLOYD CINEM AS
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mentary delivered by an eccentric and
multi-faceted personality portrayed by
Sutton.
Ms. Sutton, at ease with both m od­
em and classical theatre, dramatic and
comic roles, is perhaps best known in
Portland for her critically acclaimed
w orkw ithTygre’s Heart Shakespearean
Company. She has been lauded for her
ability to present a “wholly believable”
character capable of “sharp emotional
turns” and full o f “comic by-play.” In
M y th m a k e r, Catterall also utilizes
Jacqui’s rich singing voice, developed
through several years of performing
with the vocal ensem ble Jazz Mouth in
the Bay Area. Jazz Mouth was an in­
tense and fertile training ground for
versatile voices, sending a half dozen o f
its m e m b e rs on to jo in B o b b y
M cFerrin’s vocal orchestra.
One of six brothers and sisters,
Jacqui was raised in Rochester, New
York. At Syracuse University, she stud­
ied at chi lecture, computer sciences and
Spanish literature. W hen not onstage in
some capacity, she can be found at
work on her novel about magic and loss
called W h ere th e D ragon Decides.
min iiim iiiiiii M illi Hiiiiii
-M ik e Clark, USA TODAY & Jack Mathews, NEWSDAY
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L andscapes was recently chosen to be
presented at the prestigious Northwest
New Works Festival in Seattle.
To develop Sutton’s character for
M y th m ak er, Catterall drew inspira­
tion from an eclectic resource list which
ranged from Joseph Cam pbell’s Power
o f M yth to The Old Parm er’s Almanac,
from the Tao Te Ching and Mayan
prophecies to James G leick’s Chaos,
from Big Bang Theory to Native Ameri­
can legends, Hindu rituals and African
American oral histories. She studied
the storytelling traditions of both East
and W est, observing gestural vocabu­
laries as well as verbal styles, finding
threads that connect diverse cultures
across time and space: intricate im ag­
ery painted with sand on opposite sides
of the globe by Buddhist monks and
Navajo shamans; a rocking gesture
appearing in traditional Russian Jew ­
ish Passover rituals and in Lakota Sioux
w elcom ing cerem onies; insightful
clown figures like American hum orist
Garrison Kc i 11or and the N igerian trick­
ster god Edshu. Out of all this diverse
material, Catterall weaves a web o f
witty stories and contemporary com ­
r be I . ' "
“ Chalkdust” at PSU
Mas Fever, a locally produced video of
the Trinidad Carnival, follows the pre­
sentation. The public welcome; adm is­
sion is free.
Chalkdust (also known as Hollis
Urban Liverpool) is a “Calypso King”
whose performances have won many
awards; and he is an academic lecturing
all over the world. He is a recording
artist, as well as an au thor of books and
articles on Calypso and Carnival, the
M ard i G ra s o f T rin id a d . A s a
Calypsonian, C halkdust’s poetry deals
with social, economic and political is­
sues. He packs a humorous punch into
many of his songs, yet the message is
obvious even through the laughter o f
such ditties as “No Toilet in Tow n’ and
the “Doc Have G oat M outh.”
Chalkdust’s presentation at Port­
land State University is sponsored by
PSU ’s Black Studies Department and
The Homowa Foundation, with assis­
tance from The Oregon Council for the
Humanities and Portland Public Schools.
For more information contact Su­
san Addy at 288-3025 or Candice
Goucher at 725-3472.
*te Mayor
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TICKETS AUO AI HOUSE OF SOUND • STUDIO 14 • ONE STOP RECORDS
Black Women’s
Gathering
Tenth Annual
Celebration
Volunteers are needed to help plan
T he T enth A nnual C elebration of
Portland’s Black W om ens’ Gathering
scheduled for May 8-9,1992.
The G athering is a time o f celebra­
tion for all African and African A m eri­
can W omen throughout Portland and
surrounding areas. A gala time ol net­
working,entertainment,cultural enrich­
ment and sisterhood is being planned.
African American W omen w ish­
ing to assist on one of the committees
should contact Deborah Marshall 236-
9687 or Lucinda Tate 283-3477 (M SG.)
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