Older sister Cecilia (Yadira Guevara) tries to resolve her differences with sister Ashley (Kana Seiki).
Set in New York City—specifically Times Square and Ozone Park, Queens—The Surgeon and Her Daughters presents a powerful story of seemingly unrelated people whose lives are upended as they struggle with insecurity and grief. Chris Gabo’s script artfully follows characters who struggle, deceive, fight, joke, and hope while reckoning with what their lives have become. Director Adrienne Campbell-Holt skillfully guides the production for maximum cathartic effect.
Mariana (Liza Fernandez) and Mohammed-Ahmed (Brian D. Coats) begin an unexpected romance.
A one-night stand brings the characters into unexpected proximity and shared grief. Mariana (Liza Fernandez), an Army sergeant major, is drunk in a Times Square bar when she joins Mohammed-Ahmed (Brian D. Coats), who identifies himself as a surgeon, for a drink that becomes a nightlong romance.
A surgeon in his native Sudan, Mohammed-Ahmed is actually working as a sandwich-board shill for O’Halloran’s, a fictional bar in Times Square. Extremely underemployed, he explains to his friend Isaiah (Eden Marryshow) that he believes in what he is doing, hoping that his dedication will result in opportunity: “There are honest ways to make a living. Whether the ‘system’ rewards this or not is irrelevant to me—because the ‘system’ does not have to wake up and look at itself in the mirror.”
Isaiah shares his excitement about Mohammed-Ahmed’s new romance with Mariana. However, Isaiah explains that he is simply trying to survive in what he sees as a corrupt capitalist system. Isaiah attacks the system: “Hard work?? Honesty?? Integrity?? This ain’t a tae kwon do class, bruh! This America! America don’t give a fuck!”
Gabo smartly employs a polyglot mixture of languages and rhythms, to capture the city’s diversity. For instance, Isaiah also critiques Mohammed-Ahmed’s dating prospects:
No Endz, No Skinz! Now you really gotta get your hustle up! Can’t be a grown man rockin’ a sandwich board and think you gonna bag you a bad one! Shorties like a man with Cheddar! Feta! Gouda! Y’Nahmean???
Ashley (Kana Seiki) looks to Isaiah (Eden Marryshow) for help in her time of need. Photographs by Maria Baranova.
When Mariana returns to her home in Ozone Park, early in the morning, her daughters Cecilia (Yadira Guevara) and Ashley (Kana Seiki) delightedly coax details about their mother’s newfound lover. Then Mariana reveals that she will soon deploy on a mission.
Deeply disappointed, the daughters lash out, having believed their mother was retiring. Mariana is torn between her desire to provide for her daughters through her military career and her pride in her achievements. As Cecilia attacks what she does, Mariana responds: “Yo, Cecilia: do you know how few women rise to the position I’m in?” Mariana assures them it’s just one final mission—necessary, she says, to protect her pension.
Cecilia acknowledges her own entitlement yet condemns her mother’s participation in the military-industrial complex. Cecilia counters that her grandmother, Mariana’s mother, fought for the rights of immigrants, declaring that she “defended peasants and farmers from landlords and death squads—face to face, mind you—while your friends were bombing fuckin’ hospitals from thirty thousand feet in the air!”
Mohammed-Ahmed (Brian D. Coats) tries to comfort Cecilia (Yadira Guevara), who is grief-stricken.
For her part, Ashley is trying to launch a dance career but feels overshadowed by older sister Cecilia:
She’ll never miss an opportunity to put me in my fuckin’ place. … God forbid I make a friend, God forbid I have an ounce of fuckin’ sovereignty over my fuckin’ life.
After being insulted and belittled by his boss, Mr. O’Halloran (Johnny Sanchez), Mohammed-Ahmed quits his job and decides to plant a garden at Mariana’s home. O’Halloran—born Gomez in Mexico—is an immigrant who believes he owes nothing to anyone, having worked his way to success through grit and market instincts: “Bars that do the most business in Manhattan have an ‘O’ in the name! ‘Mr. Gomez’s Taco Hut’—that’s not bad—but I follow the money, brutha.”
Before love fully blossoms between Mohammed-Ahmed and Mariana, tragedy strikes, prompting the daughters to examine their relationships with their mother and with each other, while Mohammed-Ahmed attempts to comfort them, drawing on his own experience with loss. Still, the trio struggles.
Throughout the two-act play, tensions emerge around immigrant identity, the value and morality of a military career, honesty, hard work, truthfulness, sibling rivalry, capitalism, and grief. Gabo’s ambitious play is receiving an engrossing, multicultural, multilayered production.
Chris Gabo’s The Surgeon and Her Daughters runs through Dec. 20 at Theater 154 (154 Christopher St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Monday through Friday (no performances Tuesdays) and at 8 p.m. Saturdays; matinees are at 4 p.m. Sundays and 1 p.m. Wednesdays; and the final show will be at 8 p.m. on Dec. 20. For tickets and more information, visit coltcoeur.org/surgeon.
