A cautionary noir for our times, Yussef El Guindi's Back of the Throat delves into the murky world of a government investigation of a naturalized American citizen named Khaled.
If Khaled's bathrobe is any indication, he has been roused from sleep late one night. The two men responsible are the Southern, dapper Bartlett and the more menacing Carl. As in Kafka's The Trial, neither man will tell Khaled of what, if anything, he's been accused or who might have given the authorities his name.
The simultaneously bewildered, angry, and frustrated Khaled (excellently played by Adeel Akhtar) is initially cooperative, trying to explain why there are "incriminating" books in his apartment (set designer Michael Goldsheft has accomplished much in a tiny space). When the genteel Bartlett shifts to strong-arm tactics, though, Khaled's willingness to be helpful rapidly fades.
Bartlett (made simultaneously charming and smarmy by Jason Guy) believes that Khaled might be acquainted with a terrorist who was involved in a Sept. 11-style attack. As the evening and the interrogation progress, the bomber (played with fiery dignity by Bandar Albuliwi) and three other "witnesses" (women with varying degrees of animosity toward Khaled and played with varying levels of effectiveness by Erin Roth) come to the stage.
With these "flashbacks" to Bartlett's talks with these characters and the hypothetical encounters Khaled might have had with them, the play begins to have a hallucinatory effect. What's real and what Bartlett and his more violent colleague (the initially quiet and later volcanic Jamie Effros) have imagined blur beautifully in Jim Simpson's taut staging, enhanced by Benjamin C. Tevelow's atmospherically dim lighting.
Most impressive about Back of the Throat is Guindi's ability to balance the play's noirish aspects, dark comedy, and Kafkaesque creepiness with fierce commentary about the erosion of civil liberties in post-Sept. 11 America. It's political playwriting at its most satisfying.
Presented by and at the Flea Theater,
41 White St., NYC.
Feb. 11-April 22. Tue.-Sat., 7 p.m. No performance Wed., March 1.
(212) 352-3101 or www.theatermania.com.