Duke & Roya Off-Broadway Reviews

The charismatic rapper follows this line with bumbling flattery, and she laughs it off. It’s a solid comic beat, but like the play, it’s not enough to fall for, or to bridge a cultural divide.

Fair warning: Duke & Roya is slow. Transitions between scenes feel labored. But its design (Wilson Chin), lighting (Amina Alexander), and projections (Caite Hevner) are spare and attractive, and the performances are so well-observed, the humor so subtle, and the gentle slow-burn of romance, familial conflict, and resolution so genuine that you find yourself watching it with exactly the same happily seduced expression as one of those rainy-day romantic comedies.

Despite its heady topics, the play is surprisingly funny, and director Warren Adams gently brings the play’s moments of levity to the stage. With its strong performances and nuanced script, Duke & Roya challenges audiences to consider the ways we connect and the risks worth taking for love.

There’s also a somewhat confusing subplot concerning Roya and a prisoner named Behrouz that neither Randolph-Wright nor director Warren Adams manage to make work. Then again, the course of true love never did run smooth.

The events of the last few days make Duke’s line extraordinarily timely, and would likely heighten interest in a suspenseful and pointed story of an American’s clueless and disastrous entanglement with a foreigner, presented as a microcosm of America’s entanglement with foreign countries. The timing might even boost something less political, a steamy romance set against a background of danger and intrigue. The production lands somewhere in-between pointed tale and romance, not completely satisfying as either, despite a charming four-member cast. Like other promising moments in the play, little is made of Duke’s line about America’s wars.