Abubakr Ali (right) plays Boubs, a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal, and Mia Barron is Dina, his morally compromised mentor, in Rajiv Joseph’s Dakar 2000.
In the 1990s, Rajiv Joseph spent three years in the Peace Corps in Senegal. Dakar 2000, currently at Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC), draws on the playwright’s memories of that experience and his understanding of East Africa at the advent of the new millennium.
Y2K is a night to remember for Dina and Boubs. Photographs by Matthew Murphy.
The protagonists of Dakar 2000 are Boubacar (Abubakr Ali), known as Boubs, a 25-year-old Peace Corps volunteer, and Dina (Mia Barron), a quick-witted, somewhat jaded State Department official in her forties with a lot of secrets. When Boubs falls for Dina, his high principles are called into question, though it’s possible his principles have never been quite as lofty as he’d like to think.
Dakar 2000 takes place in the run-up to Y2K, that uneasy moment when 1999 became 2000 and, as Boubs puts it, “people really thought the world might end … because we were worried computers might be confused by the number zero.” Two years prior to the play’s events, explosions on the same August day at United States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killed more than 220 people and injured thousands of others. Those catastrophic blasts altered the dynamics of international politics, signaling that militancy and terrorism were no longer constrained by national borders. Seemingly in a trice, the world was far more dangerous than before; ordinary people were learning about Osama bin Laden; and al-Qaida was the new focus of U.S. national security.
Narrating the play from the perspective of 2024, Boubs recalls his 1999 self as an idealistic “kid just wanting to make a difference.” He’s besotted with East African culture and yearns to contribute to the welfare of the locals. But his talents are being underutilized and his good intentions thwarted by foreign-service bureaucracy. He’s bored, as well as frustrated. Then he gets injured in a one-vehicle accident while transporting U.S.-provided cement for unauthorized (though well-intentioned) use in a community garden.
“Joseph masterfully avoids shortcomings that often plague two-actor scripts.”
Boubs has to appear before Dina, who has newly transferred to Dakar from Tanzania, to explain the accident, the demolished government truck, and why he was transporting cement to a distant village without official permission. Though Boubs’s injuries are minor, his unilateral “reallocation of State Department resources” was illegal. When Dina informs him she’s shipping him back to the U.S. immediately, he falls apart, weeping and pleading for a reprieve. Sizing up the distraught young man (whose meltdown could be an act), Dina has an inkling that he may have the right stuff to fit into the murky world of undercover intelligence. Much of what follows amounts to Boubs’s unwitting audition for such an assignment.
Like many producers, MTC has tried, with varying success, to mitigate soaring expense by presenting shows with extremely small casts, preferably only two roles and those suited to actors who are audience favorites. Recent examples are Simon Stephens’s Heisenberg, with Mary Louise Parker and Denis Arndt, and David Auburn’s Summer, 1976, featuring Laura Linney and Jessica Hecht.
Dakar 2000 may be one of the most effective two-handers of this New York theater season. Playwright Joseph’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2010.
In Dakar 2000, Joseph masterfully avoids shortcomings that often plague two-actor scripts: “talkiness,” awkward exposition, and anemic action, for instance. The play is a lively chronicle of a seasoned spy’s subtle, almost tacit recruitment of a younger expatriate for a life of espionage, while also trying to warn him about the danger and potential disappointments of such a career.
MTC has given the play a nearly ideal production, with a scenic design by Tim Mackabee (skillfully lighted by Alan C. Edwards) that allows director May Adrales to propel the action from scene to scene with cinematic elegance. As Boubs, Egyptian-born Arab-American actor Abubakr Ali (not quite five years out of Yale Drama School) is giving one of the most arresting performances of this theater season. Ali evokes his character’s odd combination of insouciance and ambition with actorly technique that’s never showy and often indiscernible. He embodies idiosyncrasy without goofiness and heartbreak with neither sentimentality nor whimsy. He’s a turn-of-the-century Candide (one can believe that), but occasionally drops hints of sneakiness (which one can also believe). As the foreign-service Mrs. Robinson, Barron mixes sleek sexiness and chilly resolve, missing nothing as she scrutinizes the character of her potential recruit. “You’re a good liar,” she tells Boubs. “I don’t begrudge that skill set.”
Dakar 2000 is wry and sometimes glib—opéra bouffe without music or dancing. It speaks to what Dina calls the “wild idealism” of being 25 years old “and living abroad and falling in love,” trying to “save the world” or, at least, “believing you can.” And, also, to the disillusion that Dina knows well and Boubs can’t quite believe in yet.
Rajiv Joseph’s Dakar 2000 runs through March 23 at New York City Center Stage 1 (131 W. 55th St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; matinees are at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. For tickets and information, visit nycitycenter.org.
Playwright: Rajiv Joseph
Direction: May Adrales
Scenic Design: Tim Mackabee
Costume Design: Emily Rebholz
Lighting Design: Alan C. Edwards
Sound Design: Bray Poor
