Review: REFUGEE RHAPSODY at Contemporary American Theater Festival

When we first meet Sakinah, in plain white smock shirt and string-drawn trousers, we see her speculating about the power of love and its power to hurt. The hint that something here is off-kilter lies in the flickering, orange fluorescents we soon note overhead; she is in a space that is somewhat separate from reality.

Over the course of the next 90 minutes, we realize that Sakinah has been institutionalized because of a horrific crime. The crime itself, and the reasons for it, become the focus of Yussef El Guindi’s Refugee Rhapsody, a taut, 90-minute psychological drama that centers on the refugee experience.

Director Zi Alikhan and his solid cast enable us to witness the many ways we frame, mistake, and re-frame those around us. Here, the framing of others runs in all directions—including a literal picture frame or two—and El Guindi asks us to contemplate many perspectives at once, which can be confusing at times as we try to sort through them all.

As the troubled Sakinah, Ellena Eshraghi turns in a memorable performance; we watch her fragile sense of self, and her fragile sense of security come slowly undone as her partner and fellow refugee, Fouad (the charmingly affable Revon Yousif) finds himself attracted to Emily, an American heiress—played here by the poised and sympathetic Shelby Alayne Antel.

A fundraising event brings Emily, Fouad and Sakinah together, and Emily’s commitment to the refugee cause, because her concern is genuine, has unintended consequences as Fouad and Emily fall in love with each other, leaving Sakinah on her own. It is one thing to be improperly framed, but another to find yourself suddenly ignored by people who, you thought, would stand by you through thick and thin.

Then we have Jenny, the psychiatrist brought in to examine Sakinah to confirm whether she committed her crime because of some mental illness. Jada Alston Owens offers us a grounded, pragmatic professional, whose pregnancy takes on significance as the nature of Sakinah’s crime comes into focus. Joshua David Scarlett, meanwhile, plays Richard, Jenny’s husband, a rising professional in the non-profit world but one who is increasingly uneasy because he is the sole black person in the room where he works. Again, the framing of a black professional as more black than professional creates tension both in his workplace and at home with Jenny.

Sakina’s delicate mental condition even manifests itself in a vision of a 19th century painting of a slave, who proceeds to step out of the painting to tell his own story, not that of the white painter who depicted him. Scarlett, now in native dress, emerges onto the stage as Waleed, a figure as frustrated by his framing as anyone else in this story.  And although he is a figment of Sakinah’s imagination, and although he somehow finds a way to break free from his slave status, Scarlett’s Waleed makes manifest the struggles subjects of a work of art will always have, to see yourself depicted accurately, humanely, as a real person. A struggle that takes on a life of its own in the non-profit world where people who wish to help refugees approach them with a gilded, misleading frame. Because even the guilding of good intentions distracts us from the human being in front of us.

The play unfolds partly through interviews with a psychiatrist, and partly through flashbacks which render Sakinah’s fury, if not understandable, at least terrifyingly real. Complexly real.  Lighting designer Venus Gulbranson has created a finely-crafted a visual narrative, through strategic shifts in color, brightness and tone, which enables us to follow the narrative visually. And Scenic Designer Afsoon Pajoufar gives us a fluid set, with a wall that transitions neatly from a psychiatric institution to Emily's swanky home, complete with a Rothko prominently displayed on the wall (Emily's plans for it become part of the plot, too).

Yussef El Guindi has given us a window into many issues at once—too many at once to keep track of, from this critic’s perspective. But the issues collide here in the Contemporary American Theater Festival’s Studio 112 with memorable force.

Running time:  90 minutes, without intermission.

Production Photo: Shelby Alayne Antel and Revon Yousif (L, in shadow) as Emily and Fouad, and Ellena Eshraghi as Sakinah (R).  Photo by Seth Freeman.

The 2026 Contemporary American Theater Festival will run from through August 2, on the campus of Shepherd University in nearby Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

For tickets call 800-999-CATF (2283), or 681-240-CATF (2283) or visit:
www.catf.org.

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