"People of the Book," a powerful play written in blood, sweat and ink

“People of the Book,” a new play  by Yussef El Guindi, begins when a man walks out of the book singing for a friend who has written a bestseller about war.  Amir (Ramsey Zeitouneh) leaves the room, uncomfortable, although it appears the discomfort  might be due to jealousy of the author as a romantic rival. Lynn (Sarah McAfee) wants to enjoy her friend Jason’s (Brian Slaten) success, but stands by her husband. He denies being envious, but clearly something is going on in this play about a soldier who returns home with a kind of Iraqi war bride Madeeha from the battle zone (Haneen Arafat Murphy). “People of the Book” answers the question as to what is wrong in an hour and a half of taut, well written, acted and directed drama and dialogue that puts the pedal to the metal (and the medal, in a sense) and doesn’t take it off for nearly an hour and a half. Before Jason enters, we hear the sound of applause, as if war has become a performance in which we root for a team rather than confront the daily tragedies that transpire in conflict.

“People’s stories and misfortunes become entertainment for others,” we are told during this show, but it’s clear that much more than making money from others’ misery is at play here.

In a New York City theater scene preoccupied with famous performers rather than great performances, demographics rather than drama, realistic conversation rather than true dialogue, character instead of rather than in addition to conflict, and all the bright, glittering objects that dangle in front of and dazzle audiences, “People of the Book” is exactly what the play doctor ordered. It is a real play, real theater, and a reminder of how rare that can be, drama distilled to the bare bones of good directing, acting and writing, at a time when Broadway’s houses are occupied not only by musicals, but by often lightly edited and structured plays. It’s just plain…good.

The relationships drawn with battle lines are evident from the beginning, although we sense right away that more is going on. “Congratulations, buddy,” Ramsey Zeitouneh as Amir says with false camaraderie when Brian Staten as Jason the author, like a victorious soldier in a Shakespearean play ready to claim the spoils, arrives. “This is really big.” That’s two lies in two sentences. Amir is suspicious and not in a congratulatory mood. And they are not buddies, but rather engaged in a battle. In a play where each word is as carefully placed as a flower in a beautiful bouquet, we hear that Jason is blowing up, as in becoming a huge success. Still, there is the other meaning of that word from war. He is caught in an explosion whose results will be revealed. Somehow we know something is amiss in part due to the acting and dialogue, but also due to the suspicion that hovers like a fog over the entire stage of this play, set against the backdrop of war, peace and politics with a central mystery as to what the true story may be.

If “People of the Book,” beautifully and dramatically directed and staged by John Langs, stands out, it might be worth a moment to look at why it is, and shouldn’t be, unusual. American theater has long been plagued by the question of whether it’s possible to write an American political play. It’s a serious question. “Death of a Salesman” is political, in that it’s about capitalism and materialism as distracting and even destroying dreams, where we convince ourselves anything is possible, but fundamentally, it’s about family and a father and son play. “…Salesman” was both criticized as Communist propaganda, more Das Kapital than capitalism, and praised as American realism meeting idealism, leading to Miller’s testimony before the House Unamerican Activities Committee as Marilyn Monroe sat in the audience.

This play, by an Egyptian playwright living in California, answers the question, "It is possible to write a passionate, powerful political play?" with a resounding, "Yes." "People of the Book," although its title might not tell you that, is at once a good story and an allegory for the Iraq war, dealing with PTSD, conflict and catharsis, lies used to justify our interests and the dangerous side of desire. It is a Greek tragedy rooted in the Middle East with newspapers as the chorus. It is classic and contemporary at once, an emotional arrow fired in the first scene that hits the audience’s hearts by the time the night is done. It is no coincidence that the soldier is Jason (Jason and the Argonauts) and the wife, who is called at once a victim and a monster, is Madeeha (Medea). But this is not Greece. It is Americans and Middle Easterners with clashing views, emotions and goals leading to a well choreographed fight between the two men, a moment where Madeeha actually wears a paper bag like a hijab or a burkha, in a show that is a visual feast on a small stage with everything from belly dancing to projections of battle scenes. There’s a lot to hear and see here – as well as think about.

This play stands out as having a strong structure, with the emotion of Shepard, the structure of Shaw and the unique stamp of its own writer. It deals with war and truth, life and lies, with an American soldier and a poet of Middle Eastern heritage, but it is an emotional battleground. It deals with cultural and gender issues. Haneen Arafat Murphy as Madeeha is at once strong and needy, seeking to save herself. Sarah McAfee as Lynn is torn between two men, as well as financial success and allegiance to art, at one point harping on her husband for writing poetry that will never reach as many people as Jason’s book. It’s a little bit like what David Mamet said when he talked about those “terrible television people” who tell you to write TV to reach more people, a goal as superficial as a screen, rather than focusing on reaching and moving more hearts.

McAfee’s character may love her husband the poet, but she also likes something about the soldier whose name is on everybody’s lips. Success attracts us all, or most of us, even though some are attracted by the opportunity to save someone. Success is a shorthand for strength and security, even though sometimes it's really more a result of luck, privilege and opportunity. Each character here has choices, decisions, struggles and a search for salvation. This is a play full of ideas, but not ideology. It is not  preaching, not about the pusillanimous politics of two political parties competing for spoils, but about passions, allegiances, patriotism, love, loss, fame, betrayal, and the power and pain of lies. The soldier and the poet each love the same woman, while the husband, a man of Middle Eastern heritage, begs the soldier not to take her and fights for her, while fighting against the demonization of Middle Eastern men. Jason calls Madeeha a monster, but Haneen Arafat Murphy seems more like a desperate, strong woman who, really, rescued him. She supposedly engaged in a horrific act, but it seems at least possible that she truly did want to save him when she did that, even though she never makes the argument.

While this play is full of conflict, most of all, this is a play about truth, and the incentives to lie, to create a story that portrays the world how we want it, rather than how it is, about how lies like a cancer metastasize, whether it is weapons of mass destruction, or the alternative narratives we tell ourselves to make the world palatable. Hemingway wrote that “the first casualty of war is truth.” “People of the Book” shows us how we can create our own truth to please ourselves and others, to make ourselves mightier and victorious. I’ll only say that when we find out the truth behind the book in this mystery, it is not predictable, and it only further deepens and explains the emotion.

When Ramsey Zeitouneh calls the book a “novel,” it is not a slip of the tongue, but his suspicion that the story too neatly pigeonholes heroes and horror, as he introduces the central question of the play, as to what happened and what happens when we twist the truth to make ourselves heroes and others villains, reducing the world not to a stage for humans, but for the morality play that makes us feel entitled to lord it over others. The American government wrote its own novel, which it called fact, leading to a war, including Colin Powell’s misinformed monologue at the United Nations.

What were the consequences to the Americans who did this? There were none to the leaders, while the bombs fell on others’ heads, American soldiers died and families on both sides mourned. An attack by Saudis led to an invasion of Iraq in a plot that Ionesco could have written. Too often, lies are used to justify actions where the real motives would not mobilize or be palatable. This play is a microcosm of the larger Iraq war, but it is always about people and just a fascinating plot.

From the start, we know there is a triangle, the strongest of shapes, although this play is so full of triangles, you could build a geodesic dome.  Lynn played by Sarah McAfee is a vivacious, artist – an American woman with a bare midrift and a bold mind -  married to Ramsey Zeitouneh’s Amir, a gentle liberal who finds beauty in leaves, in a country where the biggest problem is bad reception and perception, where gun problems pale before the tragedy of car bombs. Brian Slaten’s Jason, someone they both know, has been catapulted to success  by a book about his experiences as a soldier, although we don’t get details until near the play’s end. Jason stays in Lynn’s and Amir’s place, as we see that he still has his sights on Lynn, a lost, or wished for, love. Jason is all passion and PTSD, unable to feel, except with Lynn, his face blank except for moments when passion is written across it. He seems unable to enjoy his success, like J.D. Salinger back from World War II, celebrated, but never truly liberated from the war.

Then we meet Madeeha, played at once as an outsider and someone with the deepest emotions, desires and ambivalence by Haneen Arafat Murphy, who, we are told, Jason saved. While the narrative is hero and damsel in distress, the two clearly are playing roles in a more nuanced narrative. They are married, but it is part of the story, not the facts. What is the true story? She wants him to get over the trauma, which we know is connected to the truth which, in this world, people put on and take off like a tailored suit. Jason tells Madeeha (Mad as in angry plus Medea) that she is part of the horror. We still don’t know what happened, but whatever it is, it has scarred this soldier.

We see flashbacks and hear explosions and a nightmare, when reality itself has become a real nightmare, showing a kind of game show called “Truth or Die.” Jason has to tell us why he went to war as a host walks  through the audience and onto the stage. Jason says it was to help, to improve lives, before finally saying that they blew up stuff in his country, so he will blow it up in theirs. We watch Slaten break down as if under interrogation. He wants revenge, excitement and experiences that will set him above others and earn respect. He went to Iraq for reasons that have nothing to do with nobility and rescuing a nation. He may have lied to himself. Who knows?

When Haneen Arafat Murphy as Madeeha translates something Amir, played by Ramsey Zeitouneh, wrote, Amir begins to think she may have had a bigger role in the book than she says. And gradually, we find out that events may not be exactly as the book portrays, just as our nation’s narrative was not accurate. This mystery is a key part of the whole play, in a search for truth, but also the truth about who are the heroes and the villains, if any. I would have liked it if Madeeha’s actions were defended and explained a little more, presenting her point of view regarding this. But when we find out the reality behind the book, it’s a surprise that makes complete sense. The book, really, is part of an allegory not just for a publication, but for the American use of narrative to fight war.

We find, but also create, villains and then attack them, saying we are good. But “People of the Book” – a title whose religious connotations may be misleading - doesn’t play simple politics. People and their motives are complex. Everybody’s life collides with everybody else’s, showing us an emotional battlefield with blood spilled all over it in the form of red ribbons, wine, dresses and more. I can only  say it evolves with exciting twists and turns, constantly moving forward, unlike so many dramas today that provide hours of dialogue and two minutes of plot.

The set is ingeniously designed by Gloria Novi and Elena Vannoni , using flats as scrims, turning them into a claustrophobic room like a cell or a long wall, turning boxes into a bed or table. Nothing is what appears as pieces of the set, like a puzzle, are arranged into different shapes in this house with many mirrors with chameleon-like set changes.  In addition to black and white, we get spots of red,  both blood love. It is both passion and pain as if the two are different. Novi and Vannoni also designed costumes, which fit and express character well. Projections by Kim T. Sharp give a cinematic feel to the whole production. Lighting by John Salutz and sound by David Margolin Lawson further enforce that cinematic feel and let us glide between the present and the past, war and peace, creating moods that change with kaleidoscopic speed and ease.

This is at once a well made, highly structured and very realistic play that at times feels like a movie on stage, in part due to sounds and special effects along with Lang's sharply cinematic eye for visual presentation. Jason and Madeeha are figures from fiction, created by narrative. They exist as myths, while so much of our wars are based on modern myths. In fact, narrative may be the real weapon of war that we all ignore. That may be the underlying point. When we tell lies, they will bite us back. If you ride a tiger, you may die from one. You can’t pet a crocodile.  It doesn’t care whether you care. Too often, we are borne away by the stories we are told and we tell. Think about a lie you tell yourself. Then ask yourself why. Then ask yourself what the truth is.

Sometimes, lies can be inspiring speeches, leading to good. Too often, though, as with characters in “The People of the Book,” we are told a narrative is nonfiction, when it is a fiction others have created to get us to do what they want, and what we would never do otherwise. This is a profound, powerful play that  deserves publication and more productions, as well as lines to get into the theater. It shows what happens when people open the Pandora’s box of lies that lead to suffering.

It doesn’t, however, so much take sides as present them, the hallmark of good playwrighting rather than propaganda. Amir, a poet, is described as “too snobby for something as low brow as patriotism.” And the army is seen as a tool of others’ interests. Drama is argument with high stakes. So the arguments here are truly dramatic. Characters here are not cardboard cutouts. Too often plays dealing with Americans and Middle Easterners simplify things and create heroes and villains rather than human beings. The playwrights take sides. This play bashes nobody, but shows us the struggle of people caught in war, the way good war reporting does. “People of the Book” gives us living, breathing human beings with struggles, loves and  sorrow. This is truly theater, rather than the

artifice and endless dialogue that passes for plays in so many spaces. Madeeha  says people here talk about her country like it’s “another planet.” Exactly, and that’s the problem. If we don’t realize we are all part of one world, how can we  ever stop finding ourselves on opposite sides of one war?

We hear that couples remain together because they are “too lazy to find other people.” And we hear, “People don’t apologize in America.” It’s understatement. When we go in for a war to remove weapons of mass destruction that don’t exist, leaders neither apologize to Americans, including the families of fallen soldiers, nor the victims abroad. Authority in America seems to grant impunity. Seeing ourselves through others’, and through a good playwright’s, eyes is a gift. Madeeha talks about “introducing” her tongue into her husband’s mouth, misusing words, because she does not understand the shades of meaning, so easily leading to miscommunication and misunderstanding. The fight scene choreographed by Jose Maria Aguillo flows out of the emotions there all night. It is not two people trying to hurt each other, but to impose their will on each other, the culmination of a bigger battle. It works, because everything leading up to that moment works. You can only have a cherry on top of a sundae if there's a sundae underneath it, and there is. This is just a strong show from start to finish. If you want to see a big play, possibly with famous actors, go to Broadway.  If you want to see a great play, you may do better to head to a different Midtown destination.