Tina Turner may call
love a “second hand emotion” but neuroscientists are eager to discover the
vital brain chemistry at work in “romantic love.” PARADISE
(@ Central Square Theatre through May 7th) is Laura Maria
Censabella’s lovely two character play, ostensibly about a disillusioned high
school teacher and a bright, inquisitive student. But Censabella makes it much,
much more.
The teacher is an
embittered former academic whose research, years ago, was stolen by a fellow
scientist. His life took a downward slide after the incident and now he finds
himself teaching high school in the Bronx. The
spunky student who asks him for help is an engaging teenager whose staunchly
Muslim family emigrated from Yemen
and steadfastly observes its customs. She wears the traditional headscarf. She
is expected at eighteen to accept an arranged marriage. And at the same time
she wants to be a scientist. She’s obsessed “with the hidden world of the
structure of things.”
At first he turns her
down but then relents when he experiences her passionate determination. She’s
keen on proving that “love is more than evolution.” He encourages her to find
“a new way to look at the adolescent brain” because current science dismisses ‘reasoning’
in teenagers altogether, because of “an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex.” You
might think this all sounds rather abstract but it’s not. She brings out the
best in him and he in her. It’s a love story that’s not romantic in nature.
Director Shana
Gozansky has two extraordinary actors to animate Censabella’s intimate story.
Barlow Adamson takes his character on a breathtaking journey from despair to truth
to compassion to sacrifice and generosity through love. His tour de force is matched
by Caitlin Nasema Cassidy’s fireball of energy. Like Adamson’s teacher, we
can’t resist her ebullient spirit. Like him, we are won over by the beauty of
the Koran passage she sings to him. She struggles mightily with the divide
created by her religious devotion but it’s the teacher’s struggle that truly breaks
our heart.