Jameel (Zarif Kabier) and Haytham (playwright Laith Nakli) discuss troubles in Syria in SHESH YAK (photo by Sandra Coudert)
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater
224 Waverly Pl. between Eleventh & Perry Sts.
Wednesday – Monday through February 22, $30-$35
866-811-4111
www.rattlestick.org
At the beginning of Laith Nakli’s stagnant Shesh Yak, making its world premiere at the Rattlestick, thirtysomething Syrian American Jameel (Zarif Kabier) is much too happy that Haytham (Nakli), a scholarly older gentleman from his native country, has come to stay in his rather ratty New York City apartment for a few days in conjunction with Haytham’s arrival in town to participate in an important panel discussion. But it soon becomes apparent that Jameel has ulterior motives in welcoming Haytham into his home that go far beyond honoring him as a heroic figure fighting the power and publicly speaking his mind during Arab unrest. Set in pre-9/11 New York, Shesh Yak explores rebellion, repression, and retribution from a distinctly Syrian point of view, but it offers little that is new, instead relying on genre clichés, clumsy exposition, and familiar twists. The seventy-five-minute one-act most closely resembles Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden, but playwright Nakli (Aftermath, Food & Fadwa) and director Bruce McCarty (White Men with Afros, Running into Me) keep things far too straightforward and predictable right through to the ending. The title of the play comes from the name of a desirable dice roll in backgammon; unfortunately, the well-meaning but clunky and plodding Shesh Yak is about as exciting as watching two people play the traditional board game.