Egyptian-American playwright will get an off-Broadway production
Get ready, New York, a Portland performance is going off-Broadway.
The show is “Threesome,” first produced by Portland Center Stage. Written by Yussef El Guindi, the play was first workshopped at the JAW playwright festival in 2013 before getting its world premier this past January.
Off-Broadway company 59E59 Theaters caught wind of it, selecting “Threesome” as one of five shows it will produce in the company’s upcoming season.
“With all the attention Portland is getting from New York media these days, it’s fitting that a Portland theater production managed to catch the attention of a major Off-Broadway company,” PCS wrote in a press release. “Everyone in the city should be proud that its largest professional theater company is producing work that is in demand in New York.”
It’s a well-deserved honor. In a review for The Oregonian/OregonLive, Richard Wattenberg called the play “intelligent, smart [and] self-perceptive.” He hailed El Guindi’s script for its authenticity and awareness – high praise for a show about a ménage à trois.
The script follows Rashid, an Egyptian-American photographer, Leila, a westernized Egyptian writer now living in America, and Doug, the couple’s buffoonish American third wheel.
The trio of swingers can’t really swing, and their awkward attempts bring much of the show’s comedy. But the laughs soon turn to serious introspection, as El Guindi explores sexual and gender politics, as well as tricky geopolitical concerns.
“In both script and production, the articulate Leila’s struggle to come to terms with sexism, ‘orientalism’ and the pursuit of power resonates with intense passion and pain,” Wattenberg wrote.
The move to New York will likely only heighten that production, bringing a bigger and more refined “Threesome” to an audience primed for quality theater.
Source: www.oregonlive.com