Oy Calcutta: NARD: The-New-Age-Racial-Discrimination musical
Words escape me.
In two responses posted on the Plank web site, audience members mention the desire they felt to walk out of this show. While I may have had the impulse, I stayed glued to my seat for its duration, jaw dropped.
Afterwards I left the theatre – mouth still agape – and tried to process what I had just witnessed. But even now, I cannot for a second conceive how this was allowed onstage.
While traveling, many people traditionally take pictures and send postcards. In the case of Stewart Katz, he wrote a book (which he shamelessly begs for you to buy during the show), made a “sensational soundtrack” and a musical to go along with it – Oy Calcutta – in which he stars. Who is this guy? He is self-described as “a new age neurotic”. When defined by a dictionary, neurotic means, “suffering from, caused by, or related to neurosis” with synonyms including “mentally disturbed” and “psychopathic”. Katz certainly called it! This depiction is the only explanation I can fathom that would excuse this show.
The plot: a fanny-pack and knap sack towing Canadian woman (Sue Newman) travels throughout India pondering if she’s “just another lost Westerner looking for a guru” with a long white beard. She used to be obese but now wants inner peace (let the cheesy rhyming couplets begin). On her journey, she encounters first an ear-cleaner then a host of other pests bombarding her to buy things. They are all played by Katz in various stages of (un)dress (let the tacky costumes begin) who speaks the entire show in an incredibly insolent Indian accent. Speaking of pests, one of the colourful characters she encounters is a head scratching Rastafarian (Katz clad in a dreadful dread-lock wig) who tells her of his lice and of a severe intestinal parasite he passed, so big it had horns (let the potty jokes begin). And cue a song about diarrhea.
Songs and jokes about intestinal malfunction are splattered throughout the show. At one point, Sue’s Jewish mother calls and expresses jealousy when she learns of Sue’s severe diarrhea; “you’re so lucky, I’m so constipated”. (It might be funnier if three million children didn’t die a year of malaria.) To cure her ailments, she is advised by a coughing, farting and burping Indian doctor with a pillow stuffed under his shirt (guess who), to drink cow’s urine. And wait, there’s a song about urine too, the audience favourite “urination is elimination”. It is complete with lyrics like “being constipated is overrated” and a whole whack of choreography by the back-up dancers to explicitly illustrate such exciting topics.
At another point, Katz appears on-stage in a full body cow suit and accompanies himself on the guitar singing a song about how it’s not easy to be a holy animal but it could be worse (I could be in a zoo or as the dinner at a non-Hindu BBQ). While the rhymes were ridiculous, what I found truly distasteful was Katz' eagerness to tramp on the sensitive subjects of both race and religion in a manner that lampooned excessively and capitalized on stereotypes. While they may not have spoken up, I can attest from conversations I had after the performance that many audience members of Indian (and non-Indian) heritage felt highly uncomfortable and misunderstood by Katz’ parodying presentation of their country, culture and beliefs.
Katz took a trip to India, sure, but in this attempt at spoof, he apparently possesses neither license nor insight to interpret that country’s way of life. From the forced accents to the poop jokes, Oy Calcutta was a gross misrepresentation. It was equally astonishing to see a band of beautifully skilled musicians performing traditional music and a troupe of three very talented dancers contributing their immense ability to such an offensive cause. While they were on stage performing with great proficiency, it made my stomach curdle to see, what was in my eyes, extreme exploitation. Their presence in the show was completely disjointed from the one-man spectacle Katz appeared to be performing.
To get a feel for his showmanship (without having to endure it for an hour), you should really visit his web site, http://stewartkatz.ca and check out the “All About Stewart” section (which might have been a more apt title for this musical). Blame the stage-hogging on the neurosis or the fact that he has previously produced and starred in three theatrical one-man comedies – maybe he doesn’t know any better?
But there is no way deny or overlook the extremist racial degradation going on in this piece. It is completely fitting to compare Katz’s caricatures with blackface performance. He creates archetypes akin the happy-go-lucky darky on the plantation or the dandified coon, but Indian. If the same stereotyping strategy was employed by a Caucasian male to the abasement of aboriginal people, it would be an absolute outrage. But the guise that there is some sort of deeper philosophy from a foreign land to be grasped or that it’s all done in good fun prevents the crowd from protesting or, in my case, leaving part way through despite the impulse.
The show’s production company, Peace in Our Time Productions, was founded by Katz as a “company dedicated to reaching as many people as possible through comedy with a message of tolerance and peace”. I cannot be tolerant or peaceful about the message in this piece; it is tasteless, hurtful and utterly racist. And there’s nothing funny about that.
Written by: Stewart Katz
Directed, Produced and starring: Stewart Katz and Sue Newman; Also Starring: Namchi Bazar, Laura Albert, Melissa Estable and April Mackey
Stage Manager: April Mackey.
Original music by: Stewart Katz and Sean ‘Sirbassa” Hill
Live Music Performance by: The Ek Band Collective