Theater review: "Love Person" a fascinating look at relationships and language

Aditi Brennan Kapil's "Love Person" isn't just a love story told in three languages: English, Sanskrit and American Sign Language. This smart and insightful work, receiving its premiere at Mixed Blood Theatre, is a love story about language itself.

The play begins with four people in a bar: Free, her lover, Maggie, her sister Vic, and Vic's latest love interest, Ram. Opening with a Sanskrit love poem, the play leaps into an examination of how communication is shaped through various forms of language.

Free communicates only in ASL and finds poetry a mystery. Ram moves freely between Sanskrit and English, but has difficulty grasping the concept of a language based on gestures. Maggie and Vic, conversant in both spoken English and ASL, attempt to negotiate the minefield between Free and Ram.

On one level, "Love Person" is a straightforward romantic mystery, complete with mistaken identities and a Cyrano de Bergerac-style courtship conducted by email. On another level, it is a philosophical discourse on linguistics, language and the complications and limitations of translation. The entire play has been made accessible to deaf audiences through a combination of ASL and dialogue projected onto screens. Hearing audiences sometimes must read the projections to follow silent scenes conducted completely in ASL.

This is heady, complex and often unwieldy material, but director Risa Brainin's strong ensemble of actors do a fine job of making Kapil's intellectual argument accessible at an emotional level. Alexandria Wailes, a deaf actor, imbues the role of Free with explosive energy. With her marvelous command of body language and facial expression, she easily communicates Free's frustration, loneliness and quirky sense of humor without ever speaking a word.

Rajesh Bose's Ram, on the other hand, rarely stops talking. Whether he's rhapsodizing about the wonders of Sanskrit or gingerly treading the rocky terrain of a new relationship, Bose makes his character's enthusiastic love of language palpable. It's a skillful and engaging performance. Erin McGovern and Jennifer Maren offer strong support as Free's lover and sister, respectively, although they are often in danger of being overshadowed by the strong dynamic between Wailes and Bose.

This play is the fourth offering in Mixed Blood's season of plays by women, and it's an outstanding opportunity to experience the work of a skillful local playwright. Kapil's "Love Person" is a fascinating brew of emotion, wit and intellect that challenges its audience to reassess how the form of communication shapes understanding.

Lisa Brock is a Minneapolis writer.