Review/Theater; Leaving the Veiled Life of Algeria
By WILBORN HAMPTON
Published: June 26, 1988, Sunday
As the lights dim at the start of ''You Have Come Back,'' a play by Fatima Gallaire-Bourega being presented by the Ubu Repertory Theater, the cry of muezzins breaks the pre-dawn darkness, calling the faithful to prayers. Soon an old man enters carrying ever so slowly the heavy suitcase of Lella, a woman who is returning to her native Algerian village after 20 years in France. The tableau sets the pace and tone for the rest of the play.
Lella has not even gone into the house of her recently deceased father before she observes that nothing has changed in the two decades of her absence. The next 100 minutes are spent verifying that observation.
Before much else happens, however, Lella's old nurse comes to wait in the courtyard for her returning charge to emerge from the house. Frances Foster gives such a superb performance as the 103-year-old nurse that it is a revelation just to watch her move about the stage, creating an old Algerian woman out of a few lines. The most emotional moment of the evening is reflected in Ms. Foster's face as it slowly creases with joy and thanksgiving to once again see the child she raised, and whom she thought she would not live to see again.
Shortly after that moving scene, Lella is visited by four ululating old school chums who let their veils down and spend the morning drinking tea, eating pastries, catching up on the past 20 years of bad marriages and reminiscing about old times. They bring with them the mad woman from next door who causes some anxious moments. They all sing and dance and hold a happy reunion.
Later in the afternoon, however, five black-robed women elders of the village call and one by one viciously accuse Lella of betraying her heritage by marrying an uncircumsised infidel of a Frenchman and not even trying to convert him to Islam.
The main problem with ''You Have Come Back,'' which has been translated by Jill Mac Dougall, is that it is not so much a play as a social documentary-cum-travelogue on the plight of women in Moslem society. For all the confrontation, however, there is little real human drama to give it life, and the writing tends to fluctuate between conversation and advocacy. The school chums, for example, frequently speak in unison in the manner of a Greek chorus. The women elders talk mostly in slogans. And even Lella is given such lines as: ''I have crossed seas and mountains. But I have also crossed centuries.'' At another point, Lella tells an old family retainer, ''Stand up and remove your veil.'' And that seems to be pretty much the message of the play. But by stacking her deck so heavily against Islam, especially with the brutal ending, Mrs. Gallaire-Bourega, an Algerian-born writer who lives in France, ends up taking a superior attitude toward her Moslem sisters and weakens her arguments by sermonizing.
Francoise Kourilsky has directed the play, which is part of the First New York International Festival of the Arts, with an eye to opening up some action in what is primarily a talk piece. But there are simply too many entrances and exits with trays of tea, coffee and pastries.
The rest of the respectable cast, led by Blanca Camacho as Lella, works hard. Phillip Baldwin's whitewashed wall of a set and Genji Ito's music and sound evoke a wonderful sense of northern Africa. TRAGIC HOMECOMING YOU HAVE COME BACK, by Fatima Gallaire-Bourega; translated by Jill Mac Dougall; directed by Francoise Kourilsky; sets by Phillip Baldwin; costumes by Carol Ann Pelletier; lighting by Michael Chybowski; music and sound by Genji Ito; movement consultant, Solange Pinget; production manager, Peter J. Muste. Presented by Ubu Repertory Theater, Ms. Kourilsky, artistic director. At Saint Clement's Church, 423 West 46th Street. The Old Man . . . Thomas C. Anderson Lella . . . Blanca Camacho Nounou . . . Frances Foster Badia/Khadija . . . Carmen Rosario Aicha/Cherifa . . . Cherron Hoye Abla/Zahra . . . Laurine Towler Hadda/The Elder . . . Rajika Puri The Mad Woman . . . Rene Houtrides The Slave/The Angry Woman . . . Sharon McGruder The Cripple . . . Waguih Takla