Review: Gripping, Compelling and Explosive - HOSTAGES Explores The Heart of Darkness

Yussef El Guindi (Jihad Jones, Language Room, Threesome) has amassed an impressive array of works that mine the emotions associated with foreign-ness, displacement, and isolation and that probe, with depth and candor, the Arab-American experience post-September 11th.

In 1988, HOSTAGES, one of his earliest plays, focusing on the confinement of two British academics in the war-torn Middle East, premiered at Duke University. In 2010, it made it to New York and the Gene Frankel Theatre. Retaining still its relevance and power, the one-act drama, meticulously directed by Charles St. Clair, is now iTheatre Collaborative's current production ~ and, thankfully so. This is must-see theatre, for if the role of theatre is not solely to entertain but to provoke contemplation about our humanity ~ even if it means assaulting our senses, sensibilities, and assumptions and creating discomfort ~ then HOSTAGES fits the bill and iTheatre Collaborative is filling a crucial niche.

Todd Michael Isaac and Mike Traylor deliver riveting and captivating performances as Meadows and Ted, isolated in a sterile cell and united only by their shared Kafkaesque despair. In a chilling and gut-wrenching opening scene, the two are blindfolded and chained to a radiator.

Isaac seizes the moment and space he occupies with a visceral cry for verification of his existence. He gives form and texture to such nouns as anguish, claustrophobia, and terror. It is not enough to feel the breath of one's cell mate or to smell his stink; evidence and affirmation of existence require touching. Even as Meadows extends his leg to make physical contact with Ted, the question remains as to whether they are truly alone.

Traylor is equally brilliant and compelling in his role as the usually more measured and stoic Ted. His is a masterfully constructed contrast to Meadows' perpetual angst, concealing what is nonetheless and inevitably a latent volcano of emotion. He evokes an alternative mode of coping with fear and is not immune to outbreaks of passion or even mischief. One cannot help but feel tied up in knots as his Ted, in excruciating pain, literally cannot contain himself.

As one scene follows another, what happens to all prisoners happens to Meadows and Ted. They make adjustments, play mind games, consider escape, question their responsibility for their situation. They partake of the lounge chairs and reading materials (including a Winnie the Pooh Cookbook) that their captors bestow upon them. Reality itself is tortured and strained.

As Meadows and Ted navigate their journey into the heart of darkness, it is a measure of El Guindi's's genius and craftsmanship that he pulls the audience aboard the excursion. We are partners in imagining what it must feel like to be in a state of existential limbo, ignorant of the charges that have caused confinement, uncertain as to the when and where of one's ultimate fate, desperate for freedom but hardened to the one reality that is certain ~ confinement.

El Guindi forays only briefly into politics, and only in a most balanced way, to expose the chasm between cultures and the absurdity of war. As the hostages surmise that hostage-taking may be a fetish driven by envy of the West, their captor holds them accountable for the rain of terror and bombs that kill his brethren. And so it goes. One wonders, in the end, what straw will finally break the back of this tragic dance.

HOSTAGES runs through May 29th at the Herberger Theater Center's Kax Stage.

By the way, the Herberger's recent announcement that iTheatre Collaborative will become one of its resident companies is a well-deserved affirmation of the quality and relevance of the productions that, since its founding in 2002, Christopher Haines and Rosemary Close-Haines have staged.

Photo credit to iTheatre Collaborative

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