Phillyist Interviews... Neal Dandade

Since graduating Swarthmore, you've relocated to Chicago. How do the art scenes compare in the two cities?
That's an excellent question actually—and I'll tell you why. There's one thing that always blew me away about Philadelphia, even when I was a student at Swarthmore, which isn't exactly in the city: I got the sense that Philadelphia is an arts town. It's very much an interdisciplinary, cross-collaborative space, where studio artists will work with theatrical artists, for example, or where musicians are working with theatre artists as well. Chicago, for whatever reason, does not function in the same way. I can speak to that directly by saying that I am most deeply entrenched in the improv/sketch comedy world in Chicago—and I myself have done stuff with Silk Road Theatre Project, which is not improv but is still theatre—and while we have tons of people [in the improv world] we have very few people that cross disciplines like that, that cross between, say, the improvisational arts and the theatrical arts or musical arts or studio arts. And one thing that I really love about Philly, at least in my limited experience of Philly and my limited experience of only being in Chicago for two and a half years, is that I feel like in Philly the spirit is a lot more collaborative, and for whatever reason I feel that in Chicago it's a little bit less so. It doesn't mean you can't do it, but you find it less often.

You're going to be performing here in Philly at the Asian Arts Initiative. Is that part of a series of programs that they're doing?
It is indeed. It's the Guest Producership program, which is this great program that they just started in which they bring visiting artists to their space and they allot us rehearsal space and rehearsal time to workshop what we're performing and then they help produce the final shows.

Could you tell us a little bit about Mango Chutney on Mesa Street, the piece you'll be performing as part of this program?
Mango Chutney on Mesa Street started as one of my honors theatre pieces for my theatre major at Swarthmore. [I] built the piece [with] Maria Möller, who is a solo performance artist around town and is involved in a lot of theatre, including Shakespeare in Clark Park, and we aimed to create a piece that was about the South Asian American experience, the first generation American experience. But one thing we wanted to look at, specifically, was this idea that a lot of times, we felt that the immigrant story was portrayed in a negative light or a light that highlighted the hardships and didn't point as much to the blessings that come from being in between two cultures. So that was our goal. I grew up (as you know, Jill, because you did, too) in El Paso, Texas, which, at least when we were growing up—it's changed very much now—did not have a lot of Indian or Pakistani or Sri Lankan or Bangladeshi families living in the area.

The piece is really about my experience growing up in that environment, and more specifically my relationship with my heritage and my culture, which we focus on through my relationship with my grandmother and my grandmother's presence in our family and what she represented. She, unfortunately, passed away when I was a sophomore in high school so this is looking back at how I found my culture through knowing my grandparents. I was told from the time I was young that I was so fortunate to have my grandmother from India living in our home, as opposed to being [someone we talked to] on the phone and this piece explores the relationship between my grandmother and other members of my family—myself included—as a way of mapping my cultural competence or my notion of cultural heritage or my formation of cultural identity living in El Paso.

All of the characters in your piece are real people—with the possible exception of the Hindu god Ganesh, who we'll return to in a moment. Do you find that it's hard for you to write about and portray real people, especially when they sometimes end up in your audience?
That's a fantastic question, especially in the context of—we performed this show at the El Paso Hindu Temple. Or I should say, it's the Southwest Hindu Temple, [which] was actually just completed a couple of years ago. It's interesting that a lot of people mentioned and portrayed in this piece were actually there. My mother is in the piece, and she'd come to see the piece [before]. I have to admit, this really has changed my concept of the theatrical process and more importantly, of specifically this piece. It should be noted again that I wrote this piece when I was a senior in college at Swarthmore. Now I'm no longer a senior at Swarthmore and I've built up my own experiences. Every time I go back and look at that piece, it changes completely.

Specifically, I can tell you that I feel very fortunate to have two nieces now who were born since I [wrote] the piece. What's so interesting about that is that my older niece, Yasmeen, and I are very close and I was actually thinking on the plane today that being Yasmeen's uncle and knowing what it is to be the baby in the family—when I wrote the piece, I was still the baby in the family—I identify with my grandmother's character a little more. When I wrote the piece, I was the baby in the family, but now I'm not. But watching my niece being born, I know what it's like to see a new life come into the world and wanting that life to prosper. My grandmother always wanted me to remember my culture, and I now I see that desire [when I look at] my niece. I didn't see it two years ago.

Honestly, the idea of other people who are still alive being in the piece as I change, and as those people change, I find these new revelations about how I should see the piece. Seeing the piece through different points of view as I grow as an artist and as a human being is fascinating to me. There are things that I wrote only two and a half years ago that now I look at differently. I still agree with all of it, but now, it's having that added point of view. It's really transformative in terms of my relationship as the sole actor in the piece.

How does your family feel about the way you depict them and their culture in Mango Chutney?
Honestly, my family has been very supportive of this piece. When I performed it in El Paso, it was because my father is on the board of directors at the temple and he thought it was an important enough piece to bring back to the community and to the city. So in that sense, they're very supportive.

It was funny, because there's a section of the piece where I play my mother, doing a monologue in the car. It was kind of a quintessence of the monologue my real mother would do in our real car growing up and it was funny being an objective viewer of myself playing her, talking about people who were sitting in that room as I performed the piece. Of course, all of the gestures that I make are to paint my family as characters. It was kind of a funny moment, because the people about whom my mom was talking were in stitches, and my mother was laughing. [The piece] has this quality of pointing out the parts of our personalities that we don't like to talk about but we know are there, and we're a little bit nervous about seeing those as bad qualities, but they're not because they're perfectly human qualities. I think Maria did a phenomenal job of directing me in playing these characters as real people. As we see their faults, we also see what makes them great. And I feel that, in that respect, the piece was created in such a way that when my family saw the piece, they were actually very flattered—and maybe titillated—by what I pointed out.

It's said that comedy = tragedy + distance.
Absolutely.

Your piece is informed in many ways by the loss of your grandmother, yet you ended up with what is a very funny piece. How were you able to take your experiences, which were not always funny, and find the humor for this piece?
That's a great question in terms of what I'm doing in Chicago and why I'm in Chicago. I sat down to write a piece about my grandmother and about growing up with her. That piece is a comedic piece because that's the way I express myself. I think that my work right now in Chicago, working with Second City and the improvised comedy scene there—for whatever reason, written in the stars or written on the cord between my mom and me in utero, there's just something about comedy where it's the best way I can express myself.

And at the same time, what I love about comedy is that tragedy or even life plus distance does equal comedy because comedy allows us to see things that we wouldn't normally see a lot more clearly. That's important to me as an artist in terms of my relationship to my audience. I think when we're laughing, we get each other a lot more than we do when we're not. My hope with this piece is for people to see themselves in the fictional [version] of Neal. This is about a South Asian boy who grew up in El Paso, Texas, but it's also about a boy who grew up. It's very much a coming-of-age story, so it could be about [any person] who grew up. And the comedic angle of the piece is very important to me in that vein—that it is accessible to people comedically because I think that's how people access ideas the best.

Your grandmother isn't the only important figure in your piece. How did you get the idea to incorporate Ganesh as a character?
To go a little into the subject matter about what this piece is about, my relationship with my culture: truthfully, my relationship with my culture oftentimes did come from Hindu gods. And I mean that in the sense that there's a cabinet in our kitchen that is used as an altar, and we have figures of our deities set up there with incense burning in front of it. It's funny, because [to me] that was always a wasted cabinet in our kitchen and it wasn't until I got to college that I realized what that cabinet really meant and what that cabinet really was. Now my family, I do admit to you, is not especially religious. I'd say that we follow religion in more of a cultural capacity, in the sense that religious meetings serve as gatherings within the community. And of course my parents believe in Hinduism. We are a Hindu family. It just wasn't a big part of our relationship in what we talked about, but it was always there.

And [beyond that] I'm impressed by Ganesh as a figure of art and drama and mythology. Ganesh is a fat man with an elephant's head who loves people and is depended upon as being the most human-like god. It weaves into the general theme of the piece: we've all got those hardships in our lives, like growing up in a region where no one else can pronounce your last name correctly. We all have those experiences. Ganesh had his head cut off by his own father and then an elephant's head put on—he's one of the most striking Hindu gods, while also being one of the most generous and magnanimous. So that really fit the tone of the piece as well. Religion was a way I identified with my family visually, and Ganesh was a figure I identified with personally and I thought that really fit what I was trying to get at in terms of the message. He was a perfect choice to include in the piece, and religion was a perfect fit.

Beyond the presence of the altar in your kitchen, the kitchen and Indian food in general actually play an important part in Mango Chutney. Do you find that food is another cultural access point for you?
Food was the way I accessed my culture. I think this is one of those hilariously specific yet universal tenets of human life—people talk about their grandmothers' cooking all the time. And I'm no exception. But my grandmother's cooking was especially poignant for me because it was so rooted in our Indian culture and it was so different from other cuisine I was having growing up. Mac and cheese was a lunchtime thing, and it was a treat. Mutton pulao was what we ate every Sunday. It was tradition. Food was tradition with my family. The kitchen was Akah's (that was what we called my grandmother, but it actually means "big sister" in Hindi) domain. That was where she held court. My father—and less my mother, because she was involved in the cooking—was not allowed to touch things in the kitchen because that was her domain. And so if my grandmother was to metaphorically create me out of Indian foods and spices, the kitchen is where she would do it, and so that's why food is such a huge part of the piece. Specifically, her kitchen is a huge part of the piece.

So, do you have any Philadelphia-area Indian food recommendations for us?
I'll be perfectly honest. I was a very spoiled college student because oftentimes the food would be brought in to our events. Deshi was the [South Asian] student organization at Swarthmore I was a member of for all four years, and I really loved it as a cultural, political, very active organization. Really super, super organization. Really great people. There was this place in King of Prussia, I believe, whose name I can't remember. Oftentimes we would get Indian from there. Sometimes we would come into Philly, but I'm blanking on the names of the restaurants because it was so long ago. But the catered food from KOP was great.

And what am I talking about? My mother would send me to college with food. So, my refrigerator is another place where I went for Indian food.

Are there any terms, food or otherwise, that your audience should know going into your piece?
I'm very glad that you asked that. I'll list some vocabulary that I think is important for people to know. Puja is a Hindu ceremony, usually held at people's homes, in which a diety is praised. It's kind of like a church service, though different poojas oftentimes are done in honor of different dieties at different times, coinciding with festivals or at the discretion of the people who are hosting the pujas. Different food terms are good [to know], too. A samosa is an Indian food. It's like a potato-filled puff pastry kind of deal. Very popular item—one of our best exports. Pulao is a rice dish. It's also known as biryani, usually in Northern Indian. Mutton refers to the meat and oftentimes is combined [with pulao], which was one of my grandmother's specialties. Those are the big ones.

If there's one thing you hope your audience can get out of Mango Chutney, what is it?
Here's the thing: I'm this solo performer who does this piece and I go up there myself and I tell my story. But I guess what I want my audience, honestly, to think about, is: I want them to stop and think about their story. And mostly, I want them to know that their story is important. Because I think my story is important and I think all of our stories are important and I think, sadly, in our world, we forget the fact that a simple retelling of what happened, and the significance that that holds to your personal identity and well being, is important. And I wish that people [saw the] importance of who they were, no matter what that is, because quite frankly that doesn't matter. And I think that's especially true in 2009 America, where it really doesn't matter what you are, it matters that you are. And that we all are. That's a phenomenal thing to celebrate, and that's what I hope to do through my piece, is to celebrate who we are. Quite frankly, it's cheesy and it's ridiculous and it's all kinds of other adjectives, but I really want other people to realize that their stories are just as meaningful as mine, and that they should tell them, because it's super important.

Neal Dandade's Mango Chutney on Mesa Street
The Asian Arts Initiative (1219 Vine Street)
Friday, February 27 and Saturday, February 28 at 7:30PM
Tickets $15-20 (purchasing ahead is strongly encouraged)

Photograph of Neal Dandade by Maria Möller.