Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – To leave or not to leave: Notions of home and identity explored in Mona Monsour’s THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Sanaz Toossi’s WISH YOU WERE HERE

• By drediman
• May 16, 2022
• No Comments

This past weekend, I attended two thought-provoking new plays – Mona Monsour’s The Vagrant Trilogy and Sanaz Toossi’s Wish You Were Here – that explored notions of home and identity vis-à-vis one’s physical proximity to one’s homeland. Both works presented the following dilemma to its central characters: Are you willing to flee your country for a better life? And, if so, at what expense?

THE VAGRANT TRILOGY
The Public Theater
Closed

At the center of Mona Monsour’s epic The Vagrant Trilogy (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) – which recently completed its limited run at the Public Theater – is a Palestinian couple, the scholar Adham and his tough wife Abir. In the evening’s first of three one-act play, they find themselves in London on an academic trip when the Six-Day War erupts, and are thereby faced with the decision to either avoid the conflict by staying in London or return to their homeland. Over the course of the two plays that follow, Ms. Monsour lays out alternate realities stemming from this baseline dilemma (think Sliding Doors). What becomes increasingly clear – and heartbreaking – as the rich, sprawling work unfolds is the extent to which the concept of “home” can be blurred in such cases. Indeed, there really is no right path for the couple to go down. Remaining in London would seem to compromise their marriage and ideals, while returning to Palestine and then subsequently being displaced to a refugee camp in Lebanon seems to set up a life full of toxic regrets. It’s a heartfelt, deeply intelligent piece, and director Mark Wing-Davey brilliantly brings out its many textures and complexity. Although leading players Hadi Tabbal and Tala Ashe were exceptional as Adham and Abir, respectively, the standout performance came from Nadine Malouf, who vividly portrayed various characters throughout the lengthy evening and was particularly affecting as Adham and Abir’s yearning and ambitious daughter in the trilogy’s final play.

WISH YOU WERE HERE
Playwrights Horizons
Through June 5

Then uptown at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, we have Playwrights Horizons’ production of Wish You Were Here (RECOMMENDED) by Sanaz Toossi (a playwright who scored a major success earlier this season with her play English courtesy of Atlantic Theater Company). Taking place in Iran over the course of more than a decade (commencing in 1978 and concluding in 1991), the play tells the story of the evolving friendships amongst a group of tightly-knit women. As the years pass, the focus of the play turns to infuriating, infuriated Nazanin – played with piercing vitality and intelligence by Marian Neshat (who scored critical praise this season in the similarly-themed plays English and Selling Kabul) – who staunchly places her roots in Iran, even as her friends slowly leave the country for seemingly greener pastures. Even more so than The Vagrant Trilogy, Ms. Toossi’s play takes a good hard look at the notion of identity, particularly as dictated by devotion to one’s homeland and the people in one’s life. Especially interesting is how the playwright navigates the layers and complexities that underly friendships between women and the varying degrees to which these relationships can often define a sense of self (although Ms. Toossi has a tendency to tell us about these relationships rather than showing us, perhaps out of structural necessity). The production has been directed by Gaye Taylor Church, who gives the play the space to breathe and expand as needed by its characters. Apart from the mesmerizing Ms. Neshat, the all-female cast is excellent, and each actress imbues their respective character with idiosyncratic flair.