Brilliant 'Sanctuary City' evokes a dream hometown for the challenges of identity

G (Senaite Tekle) and B (Diego Sanchez-Galvan) connect.

The ambiguities in the relationship of the girl and boy verging on young adulthood in "Sanctuary City" are stunningly illuminated in its second act. And there's enough mystery left over to shadow the play's final lines. But it's the quality of the acting in the first act that makes the ambiguities so moving, even ennobling. 

In American Lives Theatre's production of Martyna Majok's play, the performances of Senaite Tekle and Diego Sanchez-Galvan give the relationship of G and B (the Kafkaesque meaning of mere initials being clear enough)  a stature far above the uncertain status "dreamers" face here. Defining people as "legal" and "illegal" according to who they are is among the many sorrows of identity politics when misapplied to its official victims. 

The practical dilemmas that must be worked through are complicated by the actual lives of the people in question. These two young people are  seeking to secure a foothold here amid family, educational and career issues. It's G and B's common project, to which they lend energetic support. They find their way through that with difficulty, helping each other with a continuous exercise of mutual charity. 

In the first act, there are so many "thank yous" exchanged for favors rendered as their intimacy remains emotional, and they sleep (really sleep) closely side by side. There are hints of an existential crisis. The audience inevitably wonders what kind of romance and friendship is being tested and sometimes enjoyed.

The scattered colors of the spectrum play about the bare floor. There are no props, but the physical space and what belongs to it are communicated through the couple's dialogue. Under the direction of Drew Vidal, the two actors have a remarkable rapport, such that we root for the characters and admire their vivacity and pluck.

The second act brings in a crucial home setting, naturally illuminated and furnished, as well as a third character, Henry. Played with abundant self-possession and a justified feeling of betrayal by Carlos Medina Maldonado, Henry sheds light on the layers of self B has had to hide. The test that G and B have prepared for to establish their right to live in the U.S. thus becomes more than an exercise to satisfy the bureaucracy. It goes to the heart of who G and B are, where they must live and hope to find personal fulfillment even as they need their masquerade to hold firm in order to remain free and unprosecuted.

It's a test that many have failed: to project sincerity, even to represent it deeply, while linking it to one's authentic nature. The eminent midcentury literary critic Lionel Trilling even wrote a learned book on the subject, "Sincerity and Authenticity." Near the top of his essay, he cites the well-known speech in "Hamlet" of the royal counselor Polonius advising his son Laertes, on the way to study in Paris. 

"This above all: to thine own self be true / And it doth follow, as the night the day,  / Thou canst not then be false to any man." Trilling cites these lines for "their lucid moral lyricism," correcting our common impression of Polonius's windy dullness and incipient senility by his insight that all of us represent our truth to others best in first knowing who we really are. 

It's a task that burdens everyone to a degree. In "Sanctuary City," it's brilliantly set before the playgoers — most of whom will never be forced by law to falsify their reality. They should avail themselves of this production, which runs through Sept. 24 at Phoenix Theatre.

[Photo: Indy Ghost Light]