When a brother and sister meet, after many years apart, for their father’s funeral, family secrets and long-hidden resentments are bound to erupt. Such is the subject matter of many American plays.
What makes local playwright Denmo Ibrahim’s “Arab Spring,” a Golden Thread/San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company world premiere, so special are the many threads she has woven together to create a story that’s both funny and sad, complex and particular, and yet, so universally accessible.
Siblings Dina (Arti Ishak) and Yusef (Salim Razawi) meet at their late father’s Houston home the day before his memorial. They’re expected to host a simple ceremony, according to their family’s Egyptian-Muslim tradition, at home, involving tea and company. As it turns out, eulogies are not part of that tradition.
So says Yusef, the favored oldest (in fact, the only) son of the family, and yet the one who is struggling the hardest in adulthood. He’s a recovering addict recently out of rehab, full of anxiety. He’s also married and a father.
His sister is the tough one, the controlling one, currently in a cooling-off period with her female partner.
The intricate dynamics between the two, from their childhood to the present, are explored in details that are telling, poignant: They scream at each other; they wrestle; they play the highly competitive card games of their childhood; he vapes and she smokes; in a quiet, bonding moment, they dance together. Dina’s deep hurt at being deemed the lesser one (because she’s a girl) rises to the surface.
They discover things about their mysterious father that they never knew.
Inevitably, the subject of Dad’s will arises.
Stage effects aim to expand the story of these two siblings, make it more visceral: in particular, the blurry old family videos projected onto a series of small TV sets in the background, which mirror the thoughts and actions of the siblings. But they’re unnecessary and at times distracting.
Even the discovery of musing, confessional audiotapes their father made back before the siblings were born—tapes that reveal hidden sides of him—while essential to the plot, seem at times like overkill.
The sister and brother are so richly painted by the playwright and performed so beautifully by the actors; their complex relationship feels so real, so visceral, that anything other than their live interaction feels like a distraction.
That interaction goes through many phases, working slowly toward a sort of newfound mutual understanding. Under director Nailah Unole Didanas’ea Harper-Malveaux, the ways the siblings reach toward each other and push each other away—the ways their individual belief systems collide and natural proclivities emerge — feel true.
Onstage, the gray, featureless exterior of scenic designer Mikiko Uesugi’s bland house, which opens to father’s cluttered, messy living room (“The place looks like a crime scene!” cries Dina) gives the actors plenty of props and atmosphere in which to try to make this family chaos come to some sort of tentative resolution.
It’s to Ibrahim’s credit that she can make the quintessential Dad’s-dead-who’s-got-the-will family drama feel fresh and true.
“Arab Spring” continues through July 12 at Potrero Stage, 1695 18th St., San Francisco. Tickets are $30-$80 at goldenthread.org.