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The Internationalist
Lost-in-translation business trips and global travel are put under the microscope in The Internationalist , a play of wit, romance, misunderstandings and the mysteries of communication. Lowell goes abroad on business. He thinks he's in one of those great American films where you go to a foreign land and there's romance and adventure. However Lowell soon discovers that he's not in one of those movies, he's in one of those foreign films where nothing is as it seems, where there is no clear hero, and most no subtitles.
- GenresPlays
80 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2009
46 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 10, 2022
The events of 9/11/2001 provoked many feelings in Americans; one that's largely been overlooked is a very real sense of disorientation. Hubristic ol' us finally realized that there are people out there who don't like us--and don't feel any compulsion to try to understand, empathize with, or care about us.
Playwright Anne Washburn doesn't offer any judgments as to whether any of this is justified or not in her generally intelligent and engaging play The Internationalist; what's she's given us instead--most valuably, I think--is a palpable sense of what this dislocation feels like. We're used to being accommodated, in the theater and elsewhere: people are supposed to speak English and they're supposed to emulate and/or aspire to our cultural/intellectual norms.
Well, Washburn is here to remind us that they don't. In this funny, eccentric, slightly surreal thriller, an American businessman named Lowell arrives in an unnamed European country to conduct unspecified but presumably urgently important business. He's met at the airport by a woman named Sara who turns out to be a co-worker (though not the one he assumes her to be); after an embarrassing series of communication snafus that result in her thinking that he thinks that she is a prostitute, things are sufficiently sorted out to land them at a restaurant.
Here, defying expectation, the communication snafus just keep rolling on, now compounded with cultural gaffes like Lowell being afraid to taste the oddly green drink that he's been served.
The next morning, he arrives at work, but the environment is no more hospitable. The staff here--Nicol, Irene, James, Paul, and the boss, Simon--have English but spend much of their time talking in a language that is, Washburn admits, made up. It's never clear what Lowell is doing there (audience disorientation) or what Lowell is expected to do specifically moment to moment (Lowell disorientation). Relationships don't improve over time--they worsen. A gigantic crisis is clearly in progress when Lowell returns for his second day at the office, but don't expect anyone to explain it to either him or us. We get an inkling, in places, that some kind of Hitchcockian embroilment is about to befall Lowell, as in The 39 Steps or something. But Washburn withholds that as well. It's as if she doesn't care if we're ever satisfied with how her story plays out--which is, I believe, entirely her point.
Playwright Anne Washburn doesn't offer any judgments as to whether any of this is justified or not in her generally intelligent and engaging play The Internationalist; what's she's given us instead--most valuably, I think--is a palpable sense of what this dislocation feels like. We're used to being accommodated, in the theater and elsewhere: people are supposed to speak English and they're supposed to emulate and/or aspire to our cultural/intellectual norms.
Well, Washburn is here to remind us that they don't. In this funny, eccentric, slightly surreal thriller, an American businessman named Lowell arrives in an unnamed European country to conduct unspecified but presumably urgently important business. He's met at the airport by a woman named Sara who turns out to be a co-worker (though not the one he assumes her to be); after an embarrassing series of communication snafus that result in her thinking that he thinks that she is a prostitute, things are sufficiently sorted out to land them at a restaurant.
Here, defying expectation, the communication snafus just keep rolling on, now compounded with cultural gaffes like Lowell being afraid to taste the oddly green drink that he's been served.
The next morning, he arrives at work, but the environment is no more hospitable. The staff here--Nicol, Irene, James, Paul, and the boss, Simon--have English but spend much of their time talking in a language that is, Washburn admits, made up. It's never clear what Lowell is doing there (audience disorientation) or what Lowell is expected to do specifically moment to moment (Lowell disorientation). Relationships don't improve over time--they worsen. A gigantic crisis is clearly in progress when Lowell returns for his second day at the office, but don't expect anyone to explain it to either him or us. We get an inkling, in places, that some kind of Hitchcockian embroilment is about to befall Lowell, as in The 39 Steps or something. But Washburn withholds that as well. It's as if she doesn't care if we're ever satisfied with how her story plays out--which is, I believe, entirely her point.
June 19, 2024
confusing \ abiut a guy from america in a foreign country gets hired and then what like im confused
sara/lowell scene .. 14-26... 50-53... 74-79
sara monologue - 52..... 51.....
paul monologur - 72-73
paul/lowell scne .. 70-73
lowell monologue - 58-59...
annoymous women/lowell scene 53-58
nicol monologue - 48..... 49
sara/ nicol scene - 47-49
irene monologue - 41-43
james monologue 43
sara/lowell scene .. 14-26... 50-53... 74-79
sara monologue - 52..... 51.....
paul monologur - 72-73
paul/lowell scne .. 70-73
lowell monologue - 58-59...
annoymous women/lowell scene 53-58
nicol monologue - 48..... 49
sara/ nicol scene - 47-49
irene monologue - 41-43
james monologue 43
July 4, 2024
Bizarrely beautiful. I would relish the challenge of taking on this mysterious foreign workplace tale.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews