Back of the Throat
Playwright: Yussef El Guindi
Directed by: David Wassilak
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Since Sept. 11, 2001, many Arab-American playwrights have gained prominence as they attempt to expose their reality in light of the World Trade Center attacks and the implementation of the Patriot Act. Yussef El Guindi’s play about an Arab-American writer under Homeland Security scrutiny brings to light America’s fears and prejudices, and exemplifies how this collective paranoia allows us to infringe upon our own citizens’ rights—demonstrating that history has a talent for repeating itself.
Cast
Alan David (Khaled)
Kevin Beyer (Bartlett)
John Pierson* (Carl)
Julie Layton (Shelly/Beth/Jean)
Joseph Garner (Asfoor)
Reviews
"People don't do such things," the already cynical Judge Brack observes in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. And that was 1890 in Norway. In post-9/11 America, we are persuaded that they do. But some artists are standing up to chronicle these excesses. So it is that a film like Thomas McCarthy's The Visitor and a play like Back of the Throat are at the foundation of a new genre of works that seek to dramatize the realities of an America where such things are done — and perhaps done more often than most of us know.
Dennis Brown, The Riverfront TImes
this riveting, one-act drama by Arab-American playwright Yussef El Guindi fits neatly into the St. Louis Actors’ Studio’s season that focuses on “power and politics.” Part Orwellian, part Kafkaesque, it’s a challenging work that looks like the innocent flower before intriguingly revealing itself to be the serpent beneath it.
