By Jeremy Walsh
Morning dawns in Jackson Heights. Under the rusty green girders of the No. 7 subway line on Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, throngs of commuters, vendors and promoters rush past one another speaking a cacophony of different languages.
They disappear, like the crowds in Jackson Heights often do, as the unmistakable clatter of steel wheels on ancient tracks heralds the arrival of the train.
This is how the Jackson Repertory Theatre’s new play, “167 Tongues,” begins as a young transplant from Illinois stumbles off the subway and into one of the borough’s most-celebrated communities. It runs Fridays and Saturdays through May 28 at PS 69 at 77-02 37th Ave.
The title refers to the number of languages spoken in Jackson Heights, regarded by many as the most diverse neighborhood in the world.
The play features 37 characters, including the culture-shocked Illinois girl, a Tibetan architecture student, a closeted gay man afraid to come out to his mother, a yoga-minded transplant from Manhattan, a gregarious Russian book peddler, an attention-starved Bangladeshi teenager and even ghosts from the era of racial intolerance.
Alison Ostergaard, who founded the theater company in 2008, said the play’s goals are similar to the company’s.
“The playwrights come together, the characters come together on stage and the way it’s bringing in all the different people in the space was exactly what my goal was with the theater company,” she said
Like the neighborhood itself, the piece is the product of a diverse group of minds. Some 11 writers, some from Jackson Heights, others from different boroughs and different states, came together to flesh out an idea that director Ari Laura Kreith had been playing with since she moved to Jackson Heights from Park Slope, Brooklyn, in 2005.
The playwrights put special emphasis on including at least one line of non-English dialogue in each scene. Kreith said the audience has responded to their efforts to make these multicultural moments as organic as possible.
“There’d be somebody saying something in one language and the people who understood it in that language would laugh,” she said. “And then there’d be the moment later where the people who didn’t understand the moment, but got it in English a moment later, they would laugh.”
But for playwright Les Hunter, even an audience member’s bewilderment is part of what he called “a theatrical exploration of the neighborhood.”
“There are moments in the piece that people don’t understand, and that’s OK,” he said. “Because that’s part of the experience of living in this neighborhood. You’re always hearing a language that you don’t understand.”
Before the writers began the in-depth process of mapping out the characters and their arcs, they interviewed a number of community leaders in the neighborhood and took a tour.
Writers like Hunter, who lives in Jackson Heights, were able to work in personal experiences as well. The bookseller character is based on a real Eastern European man, he said.
But Kreith was quick to point out that the playwrights, who tackle issues like cross-cultural romance, teen pregnancy and gentrification, were careful not to get too personal.
“We’re not trying to put real people on stage,” she said, noting the characters’ interweaving stories serve a larger purpose.
“The neighborhood is kind of the main character in the play, if you think about it that way,” Hunter said.
For tickets, call 718-874-9431 or visit jacksonrep.org.
