The cast of Yussef El Guindi’s People of the Book: (from left): Sarah McAfee, Brian Slaten, Haneen Arafat Murphy and Ramsey Zeitouneh.
Neither the script nor the program for People of the Book states when the play takes place, so presumably it is the present. That makes Yussef El Guindi's drama not only morally and logically confused but dated as well. It treats the fight against the Iraqi insurgency, a U.S. military action that ceased about a decade ago, as a current event.
Directed by John Langs, People of the Book revolves around an American soldier's possibly trumped-up tale of heroism in Iraq—shades of Jessica Lynch, for anybody who still remembers that 2003 saga. In something else that might have been heard circa 2003—as opposed to now, 20-plus years after 9/11—the soldier, Jason, says he enlisted for “revenge … you blow shit up in my country, I'll come and blow shit up in yours!”
Lynn (McAfee) is married to her high school sweetheart, Amir (Zeitouneh), though the script might leave you wondering what's kept them together.
The play also revolves around the leftover-from-high-school rivalry that motivates a former classmate, Amir, to suspect fabrication in Jason’s acclaimed war memoir. El Guindi couldn’t seem to decide which of these conflicts is the crux of the story, and they are melded together awkwardly and dramatized in ways that don’t make sense. They also battle for centrality with other plot threads: Jason’s also-leftover-from-high-school love for Amir’s wife, Lynn, and the mystery surrounding the woman he supposedly rescued during a firefight in Iraq and subsequently married.
Her name is Madeeha, pronounced Medea, like Jason’s vengeful, murderous wife in the Greek tragedy. Madeeha, too, has committed a violent act, one that appalls Jason even though it’s something U.S. forces were trying to do.
Many other parts of the story don’t track either. Madeeha claims Iraqi men become insurgents because they envy Americans. “Some people are driven mad by other people's good fortune,” she says, sounding like Fox News rather than someone from a country that the U.S. invaded and nearly destroyed.
Judging from her extensive education and exposure to Western pop culture, Madeeha did not come from the type of deprived circumstances that would necessitate a sham marriage to escape. And if Jason married her to get her out of Iraq, why is she only now—after enough time passed that his book got published and became a best-seller—arriving in the States?
Amir and Lynn mention repeatedly that they “barely knew” Jason in school, yet he stays with them on his book tour (when hotel accommodations would undoubtedly be covered). Amir, who makes his living as a poet, is so competitive with this former classmate he “barely knew,” he resents Jason’s success as a writer and doesn’t believe his account of battle.
Jason also is still consumed, in his thirties, by feelings from high school. One reason he joined the military was to show up Amir, who he thought looked down on him. To Lynn, Jason says, “When I was over there, it was you I thought about all the time,” and later, “You've always been this ideal for me—what you stood for, the way you always saw the good in everyone.”
Madeeha (Murphy) and Jason (Slaten), like their namesakes from Greek myth, have a tumultuous marriage. Photographs by Ben Hider.
The audience wouldn’t necessarily discern these qualities in Lynn. On the contrary, she mainly comes off as gullible—and superficial, suddenly attracted to Jason just because he’s famous (or buff). Her various remarks in defense of Jason’s possible falsehoods, such as “There's something more important at stake” than truth, sound absurd.
The script gives no sense of either Lynn’s or Amir’s personality, or of any positive connection between them. They seem to disagree about everything, and she calls him an “asshole” and says things like “Long after Amir got boring, it [his Middle Eastern background] was the only thing that kept him interesting for me.” Then, all of a sudden, in their last scene, Lynn does whatever she can to spare Amir’s feelings and accuses Madeeha of attempting “to stir up shit between me and my husband.”
As Madeeha, Haneen Arafat Murphy is subjected to two different scenes where she strips for Jason. In one of them, which seems so culturally insensitive it’s cringey to watch, she removes a Muslim woman’s full face and body covering to turn into a belly dancer.
Speaking of embarrassment, the most prominent pieces of scenery are puerile, kitschy cardboard creations that are supposed to be Lynn’s much-commissioned artwork. Sarah McAfee and Ramsey Zeitouneh, who play Lynn and Amir, have to do way too much moving of the “sculptures” and other objects between scenes. While none of the actors, including Brian Slaten as Jason, is particularly impressive, their performances are defeated more by the clunky staging and substandard script.
People of the Book runs through Nov. 3 at Urban Stages (259 W. 30th St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Monday and Wednesday through Saturday; matinees ARE at 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; urbanstages.org.
Playwright: Yussef El Guindi
Director: John Langs
Sets & Costumes: Gloria Novi, Elena Vannoni
Lighting: John Salutz
Sound: David Margolin Lawson
