Peter Mark Kendall (left) and Rosaline Elbay play a couple staying at the Ritz Hotel in Paris in Kareem Fahmy’s Dodi & Diana.
The come-hither title of Colt Coeur’s Dodi & Diana is essentially a bait-and-switch. For the most part, the characters in Kareem Fahmy’s two-hander are not the lovers whom one expects. They’re a married couple, Jason and Samira, who are well off and a bit New Age. Samira does kundalini, while Jason sees an astrologer, Vincent, who has told him that he and Samira are “astrological doubles” for Diana Spencer and her Muslim boyfriend, Dodi Fayed. Happily, Fahmy’s tricksy title masks a play that’s interesting and well-performed.
Kendall as Jason and Elbay as Samira. Photographs by Robert Altman.
Alexander Woodward has designed a hotel room—the Ritz in Paris, the same hotel where Diana and Dodi stayed on the night of their fatal accident—in which the mirror frames and tables are gilded, and the beige and ecru décor is soothing and elegant. Vincent has prescribed their isolation in the room for three days in order to experience a convergence, when “Jupiter completes its transit into our twelfth house and we arrive at the threshold,” Jason reminds her. “The convergence arrives exactly twenty-five years after their car crashed.”
There are indeed parallels in the relationships of the two couples, although the lovers are gender-switched. Samira (Rosaline Elbay) is a Muslim actress who is tired of being typecast as a terrorist after an enormous success in a particular role—one that their bellhop, a big fan, asks her to record for his cell phone: “I would kill every man, woman, and child alive, burn this loathsome world to the ground, if that’s what Allah wills of me.” She is waiting to hear from Lucas, her agent, about a big opportunity to move away from bloodthirsty-Arab parts. But Vincent has warned both Samira and Jason to keep their cell phones off—and that proves tricky.
Jason (Peter Mark Kendall) is a banker who has made a lot of money, often from Vincent’s advice, that has allowed him to buy a $5 million townhouse. The character also carries a lot of emotional baggage, having been treated as a sissy and bullied by older brothers. But, like Dodi and Diana, they are privileged and wealthy. This weekend is a test of their relationship, and the offstage characters of Vincent and Lucas have a hand in the outcome.
Using a traverse staging, Adrienne Campbell-Holt has cast the play well: her leads have a great deal of chemistry. Kendall is required to be a sex object and frequently is clad in a towel or just boxers, while Elbay has a negligee or undergarments.
Fahmy throws out some red herrings too. As Jason lounges bare-chested in a towel, Samira says, “Remember the time you and Scotty …” and he immediately cuts her off curtly. Any theater aficionado will pick up on the vibe—it’s the same as in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, when Maggie the Cat mentions her husband’s late friend Skipper to Brick, and for a long time the actors sustain the notion that Jason had a homosexual affair with Scotty. The suggestion spins out further, but the truth is both laughable and poignant, although a bit far-fetched.
Kendall is good at sullenness and sincerity, as well as the odd comic moment; he brings out Jason’s vulnerability. He is proud of the money he has made that helped support her in her career, and he credits Samira with his becoming a man.
Samira and Jason find their marriage under a strain when they isolate in a hotel room on the advice of an astrologer.
As the hours pass, Samira secretly makes or takes calls on her cell when Jason is in the bathroom. Lucas has a long-term contract awaiting her, but it’s for a series in New Zealand. And Jason also checks Samira’s phone—trust issues are rife.
During it all, Hidenori Nakajo provides the sound of car crashes, and ghostly voice-overs of conversations that Dodi and Diana purportedly had in that hotel room. Eric Norbury’s lighting design also contributes a great deal—flashbulbs of paparazzi that at one point crash through to the only scene featuring the real Dodi and Diana.
For all the cleverness of the writing, though, Dodi & Diana is really a straightforward portrait of the disintegration of a marriage, when two people have outgrown each other—or, at least, when one of them has. One can’t help but feel sad for Jason, who is, figuratively, gutted by the experience, just as Dodi was actually gutted in the crash. But Samira is a less sympathetic character, ambitious like Eve Harrington in All About Eve, and her departure just may open a door for Jason to have a better life without her.
The Colt Coeur production of Dodi & Diana runs through Oct. 29 at the HERE Arts Center (145 Sixth Ave.; entrance on Dominick Street). Evening performances are at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; matinees are at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday and 4 p.m. on Sunday. For tickets and information, visit here.org/shows/dodi-diana.
