Alice in Arabialand: An Attempt Was Made

Annex Theatre, Seattle’s oldest fringe theatre company, holds a rich performance history. It sits tucked in the upstairs level of a building off 11th Avenue in Capitol Hill. The entryway is a gated blue door wedged between shops and housing units, nondescript from the outside, but not to be overlooked. Founded in 1986, its legacy lives on through a passionate collective of theater artists who are willing to push the bounds of societal thinking and create “bold new work in an environment of improbability, resourcefulness, and risk.”

Alice in Arabialand, Annex’s latest production, leapt daringly into the risk element of their mission statement. The show sought to balance art and politics and use its theatrical platform to make a statement against the conflicts of the current political age. It touched on the hardships of queerness in both the United States and Middle Eastern countries and fervently addressed the Palestinian genocide. 

But what could have been a powerful and emotionally riveting play ended up falling short in its execution. When art and politics are presented hand in hand, the art should come first. Politics should be woven into a piece in a way that provokes the audience to think and feel for themselves the message the artist, or in this case the playwright (Sameer Arshad), wants to imply. No matter the worthiness of the cause, when the playwright’s political commentary is spouted through the mouths of the actors in every scene, the play begins to feel like propaganda. 

In consequence of this, the play as a whole felt disconnected. The playwright wedged far too many characters, too many locations, and too much content into the script, jumping from scene to scene with little narrative cohesion. The story begins in Michigan, where the main character, Alice (Hannah Wang), is performing a study on Queer Arab people. When her research abruptly falls through, she decides to follow her friend, Hossam (Parsa Kaffash) to the Middle East on his belly dancing tour. With a cheerful message declaring the infinite possibilities of knowledge found in the real world and not in her papers, Hossam fully funds her travels and whisks her off to Dubai.

Yousif Abouzgaya (they/them) as

Yarqa / Farasha

Courtesy of Annex Theatre

In the end, that proved his only purpose: leading Alice from one place to another for lackluster reasons, never letting any particular location settle in or leave an impact. The story would have been better suited to a solitary setting. Confined in one place, the dialogue spent on travel could have been spent diving into the characters, their backstories, and their growth. As it stood, the characters lacked flesh and were presented in only fleeting glimpses throughout the narrative, allowing for no attachment to their stories or hardships. 

Plot-points for Sandro (Matteo Acuña), which were meant to instill grief, struck out of the blue and left the viewer more confused than sad. A romance between Lisha (hk goldstein) and Reem (Coco Justino) had the foundation for the complex dichotomy of two characters born to enemy nations finding the ground in which love can still stem. Instead, one grieved while the other just said “sorry.” The Djinn, Istama’a (Khane Berry), who was meant to be the seeker of deep truths, felt like a skimp on proper character development. 

The Djinn arrived during dream scenes to force the characters to face the inner truths they’d long avoided. These truths came in the form of poorly explained objects. Paper cranes, a rosary, and other miscellaneous things. The only object given any context was Reem’s Palestinian flag, which was plucked from the box with the joyous cry that Palestine would one day be free. In payment for these objects of truth, the characters were required to give a confession of another truth. They babbled out the lessons they were supposed to be learning without any plot-driven introspection.

The flattest of all characters, unfortunately, was Alice. A main character is supposed to drive the plot of a narrative. Alice was trampled by it. She had no agency over her own actions, and was dragged from scene to scene (with intermittent unwarranted dance breaks) for no other purpose than to be a vehicle and dart board for political and religious commentary. Additionally, her motives were in poor taste. She’d begun her study on Queer Arab people not to help the Queer communities, but rather because she’d romanticized the whimsy of the Middle East and loved the fables of the land.

The script was not the only discordant element. Lines were often a little rough around the edges in their delivery, often lacking the emotion and conviction required of certain scenes. In some moments, blocking gave little aid to these issues. Characters would cheat out to an extreme and project their monologues or lines solely to the audience instead of to the character they were meant to be having an intimate moment with, really driving home the soapbox feel of the script. 

Sandro — Mateo Acuña (he/they), Alice — Hannah Wang (they/she), Lisha — hk goldstein (they/them), Reem — Coco Justino (she/they) in Alice in Arabialand

Courtesy of Annex Theatre

Yet I have to give credit where credit is due. Many of the actors were new to the stage, and they performed passionately. They had fun with what they were given and showed the topics at hand their due reverence, and that is the true spirit of fringe theatre. 

While the play had a lot of workshopping to do, its commentary was important. It gave a wide representation of LGBTQ+ lives and showed the isolation felt beneath the weight of conservative cultures throughout the world. It also showed the resilience of Queer communities in the face of oppression and brought the conflicts in the Middle East centerstage, demanding viewers to remember them. 

I give respect to Annex Theatre and the cast and crew of Alice in Arabialand for their hard work and passion.