Brilliant Mind

"[Brilliant Mind is] the kind of full-immersive experience that you get in some of the world’s most innovative museums, a category of art which is undergoing its own transformation. But it begs the question: what is core to theatre. MTC and Storykrapht say that live is the core, without which this would not be theatre. But the additional modalities of experience — cinema, interaction, plentiful access to words and images — enrich this production in ways that’s hard to match.

The power of theatre resides in the presence of humans who you may not know before you enter the room, but who you know so much better after you leave. In the end, MTC — with Storykrapht, and play director Kate Bergstrom — has created a template for what a sustainable launch of a new play might look like.

It is both restating and reimagining what business it’s in. That’s pretty big news in the theatre world. I expect more and more producers hear about it."

“Innovative…dramatic energy. Directed by Kate Bergsgtrom, the performances are nicely nuanced and natural, exuding the easy camaraderie and comfortable annoyance of family...all woven together in a compelling package with user-friendly digital and interactive design by [Marti] Grimminck. [Denmo] Ibrahim’s Dina and [Ramiz] Monsef’s Yusef...argue and bond over shared regrets and family traumas that they remember quite differently. Kal Naga plays [the father] Samir with compelling, thoughtful equanimity. Memories spill out in fragments. I was left with a lingering longing...”

"In Brilliant Mind, digital gadgetry actually does enhance storytelling in inventive ways that ought to continue and expand once theater fully reopens.

Mill Valley theater wiz Denmo Ibrahim wrote the piece based on a recent real-life incident that’s ripe for dramatization: After her absentee father died, she and her brother went through his belongings only to discover a half-sibling Ibrahim never knew about.

Audiences who log in to the show early… are encouraged to take a virtual tour of the home of Samir, who’s later revealed as the father figure in the show. Click on that option, and in comes an open floor plan rendered in 2000s-era graphics, a bit like the video game “The Sims.” You can move around and click on different objects to open them — a record player, a refrigerator, a book, a drawer — all of which puts you in the place of the mystified child who must sort through the home of the parent she barely knew any more. It also makes you start to care about characters before a show even starts.

Equally successful is the show’s texting service, which you can sign up for before Brilliant Mind starts or in its first few minutes. If you do, you’ll get texts from Samir (Kal Naga, a.k.a. Khaled Abol Naga) throughout the play.

Its structure offers promising tools for future theatrical expeditions."

“Brilliant Mind revels in the digital realm. The story of Brilliant Mind is intriguing in its own right as it explores the lives of Yusef and Dina, first-generation Arab-Americans, and how their lives have been (are being) affected by the lives of their immigrant parents and how a family forms its identity through cultural roots, geography, secrets and the politics of history (and the history of politics).

[Denmo] Ibrahim has long been a Bay Area actor of note, someone to rely on for depth, intelligence and emotional realism on stage. She and [Ramiz] Monsef are marvelous together as their scenes crackle with the fraught chemistry of siblings.

So well acted and produced…a great deal to enjoy, savor and ponder.” 

“Marin Theatre Company and Storykrapht have created an avant-garde story form in both real time and on film, with an abundance of ingenious tech innovations. Brilliant Mind reminds us that who we are and what we become comes from family, culture, and nation. The whole [El Musri] family has a foot in two worlds, the culture they grew up in and America. The live and filmed sections show the immigrant mind precariously suspended between two conflicting cultures. The tech messages emphasize that split. Marti Grimminck’s tech innovations are ingenious. Director Kate Bergstrom keeps the complex tale focused on questions of culture and family.”