I'm not really a sports person (with the exception of my Minnesota Twins), but sports is a great metaphor for life, and a great framework to build a play around. Mixed Blood Theatre has done a couple of great ones -
Colossal about football, and
Safe at Home about baseball in a site-specific production at CHS Field (home of the Twins' Triple-A affiliate team the St. Paul Saints). Even more relevant to this discussion, Jungle Theater has done
two productions of The Wolves, about a high school girls' soccer team, and last year Penumbra Theatre staged
FLEX, about a high school girls' basketball team. With the growing attention on girls' and women's sports, it's a great time to debut another play in this genre - Katie Ka Vang's
Sixpack. Drawing from her own history and culture,
Sixpack features a group of Hmong women who play volleyball together (and sometimes against each other). But as with all of these plays, it's not really about volleyball, it's about friendship, mother-daughter relationships, and community.
See this funny, real, and ultimately heart-warming world premiere play at Jungle Theater through June 29.
Sixpack takes place in two time periods - the past (sometime in the mid-aughts) and the present. The story is centered around two high school BFFs Pam (Ashley Horiuchi) and Jou (Dorothy Vang), along with their mothers Nancy (Pagnia Xiong) and Smiles (Dexieng "Dae" Yang), respectively, and "aunties" Myna (Megan Kim) and Windy (Phasoua Vang). All of the women play volleyball in the community, but young Pam and Jou have bigger dreams of playing in college and beyond. Something happens between then and now that has created a schism in the best friendship, with Pam sticking around home and Jou going off into the world to play pro ball, the details of which we learn throughout the course of the play. An illness in one of the older generation has brought the group closer again, and we see just how much this community leans on and takes care of each other, even if they don't always get along.
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BFFs Pam (Ashley Horiuchi) and Jou (Dorothy Vang)
call on auntie Windy (Phasoua Vang) for help
(photo by Lauren B. Photography) |
Sara Pillatzki-Warzeha directs the play, making clear the time shifts with the help of subtle costume changes and 2000s era music. In between the scenes of the play are lovely movement scenes, like fluid volleyball dances (choreographed by Sandy Agustin). And don't worry, when they use actual balls a net is drawn across the front of the stage (which didn't stop me from flinching in my second row seat, with flashbacks to my not great experience playing volleyball in gym class). Everyone in the cast is great and creates believable characters, even if there doesn't seem to be much of an age difference between the two generations. Several of the aunties also play other characters, which allows for some fun comedy exploration.
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| photo by Lauren B. Photography |
The set is mostly open, hung with tapestries and graphical patterns, presumably representing the Hmong culture. The hospital bed for one ill character is hidden behind brightly colored ribbons, then spun around to reveal the elevated bed, like a throne, with several pivotal scenes occurring there. Other set pieces are brought on and off stage as needed. Characters are dressed in athletic gear with little touches that reflect each character's personality. (Scenic and prop design by Ursula K Bowden, sound design by Erin Bednarz, lighting design by Claudia Errickson, costume design by Khamphian Vang.)
Sixpack is a concise 90-minute play that spans a couple of decades, telling a specific story of the Hmong community in Minnesota (with a few local references including a vintage Twins hat) that is universal in its themes of ambition, complicated relationships with friends and family, the generational divide, and a strong community that supports each other when times get tough.
