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A versatile actor populates Sakina s Restaurant
As mesmerizing Islamic chants drown under the rasp of Springsteen rock, Aasif Mandvi glides deftly across the narrow stage. He leaps in space and time from a dusty village in India to the frenzied East Village of New York.
"I feel like a tandoori chicken dressed in an Armani suit sitting behind the wheel of a Cadillac, and I have no idea where I'm going," declares Azgi, the wide-eyed waiter in the opening scene of Sakina's Restaurant, Mandvi's one-man show, currently running at Los Angeles's Odyssey Theatre through March 15.
"Thousands of people come to this country in search of the American dream," says the contemplative Mandvi. "The play asks, Was it actually worth it in the end?"
Sakina's Restaurant tackles the struggle of tradition versus assimilation in the lives of an Indian-Muslim family in downtown New York. Through monologues, Mandvi weaves together the experiences of six characters, using Azgi, the newly migrated waiter as the central voice in the play. Draped in a pink scarf, hip locked to one side, Mandvi, in an early scene, morphs into Mrs. Hakim, a housewife and mother. "This was not supposed to be my life," she sobs, rolling out an imaginary chapati. "For me, no opportunity." The character, modeled on Mandvi's mother, challenges the myth of a repressive East and liberating West: "In India I had a life. I could dance, I was free."