Some people toss off the descriptor “ripped from the headlines” as though it’s a bad thing. I don’t agree. Creative people get their juices going from all kinds of places. Works of art addressing contemporary problems can get other people’s juices going too, ruminating on the story and then the general subject while they’re driving or in the shower, tossing an idea out at a party or hearing a news story in a slightly different way. Faceless, which just opened at The Rep Studio, is surely ripped from the headlines, and author Selena Fillinger acknowledges that was where the germination of her play occurred.
A young woman not yet out of high school has met a man online. He seems to live in Syria – we are never quite sure how much he has told Susie Glenn is actually true – and in a few months of online interaction she is in love with him. She has converted to Islam and bought a ticket to meet him in Turkey so they can slip across the border into Syria where he is an ISIS fighter.
Before she can leave, she’s found out, arrested and faces charges of terrorism. The federal prosecutor chooses one of his assistant prosecutors to “try” the case with him. (Quotation marks because there’s no question it will be His Way.) The assistant is an American-born, Harvard-educated woman who’s an observant Muslim. Claire Fathi has been chosen solely because she ticks the right boxes. Briefly, she swallows hard and tries to go along, but she is not someone who suffers racism lightly. Or quietly.
Susaan Jamshidi is Claire. It’s hard to take one’s eyes off her, so thoroughly does she inhabit the role. She’s angry because Susie has appropriated her religion and has been brainwashed by the nebulous online world into believing the ISIS line. Susie, Lindsay Stock, is firm in her woozy beliefs, ignorant of her own ignorance on politics and on life in the world she wants to become a part of. Stock makes sure we understand she’s been very fragile since before all this. Susie’s not crazy, but she’s still an adolescent in an emotional hurricane.
Michael James Reed, last seen at the Rep as King Claudius in this season’s Hamlet, is the prosecutor, and he’s strong opposite Jamshidi, including a fine bit as he pretends to learn how to pronounce “Muslim” correctly. Susie’s defense attorney, Mark Arenberg, is played by Ross Lehmann, not warm and fuzzy, more like scratchy but very wearable, strong and not apt to play nice with the sulking the young woman frequently uses. I’d like to be seated next to Arenberg at a dinner party. Susie’s father, an EMT totally stunned and mostly angry about his daughter’s behavior, is Joe Dempsey, puzzling and shouting and hugging.
Director BJ Jones directed Faceless’ premiere last year at Chicago’s Northlight Theatre, and has assembled a tight, precise cast. Other Chicago imports for the production are Izumi Inaba for the costumes, (if you’ve ever wondered how hijabs work, here’s an opportunity) as well as John Culbert’s scenic design, which comes close to stunning and Heather Gilbert, whose lighting is an integral part of the set and action.
Eighty-five tightly woven minutes, no intermission. An interesting, somewhat difficult piece of work.
Faceless
through February 4
Studio Theatre
Repertory Theatre St. Louis
Loretto-Hilton Center for the Performing Arts
130 Edgar Rd., Webster Groves
Comments