Playwright: Tom Coash
At: Bailiwick Repertory
Phone: (773) 883-1090; $15-$25
Runs through: May 16
Mohammed, a young Egyptian, has been jailed, tortured and raped by Cairo police, perhaps because of cartoons he drew at the university, or for joining student protests. Or just possibly because he's gay and has an expatriate British lover, Nicholas. In Mohammed's small Cairo apartment, the men hash out the cause even as the effect dooms their relationship.
The play's title is from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, 'Cry, 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war.' It's a fiercely political play rather than a gay play, offering little examination of homosexuality in Islamic society. Rather, it instructively seeks to illuminate some root causes of contemporary Islamic fanaticism. Upon learning that Nicholas translates love poetry, a sympathetic British Embassy official reminds Nicholas that love is passion and can be dangerous; that there can be romantic love, sexual love, love of country, family, power, position, freedom or God. 'Love always means eventual pain. Pain is the evidence of love,' she tells Nicholas as he seeks political asylum for Mohammed.
Mohammed's hatred of government repression quickly turns to a passion for revenge or larger social change. But the only outlet for such change in many Islamic nations is religion, the sole organizational force that operates effectively outside the government. Left unsaid is that Islamic revolutions have been more repressive than the regimes they've replaced, as Islamic fanaticism isn't about freedom. By embracing religion, Mohammed must end his relationship with Nicholas. Cry Havoc is about one passion replacing another—love of Allah replacing love of Nicholas—about a larger passion and a smaller one. The fact that gay love is the smaller passion is inconsequential; Mohammed might just as easily be leaving a wife and children.
Despite a surreal striptease performed by Nicholas through several scenes (stripping bare his soul, I suppose), Cry Havoc is an effective drama, if just a tad too long and too solemn. Playwright Tom Coash is excellent at evoking sensory impressions of Cairo and of London, subtly introducing Arabic phrases and Cairo place names.
This studio theater production by youthful director P. Marston Sullivan offers capable performances by Buck Zachary (Nicholas), Raymond Kurut (Mohammed) and Suzanne Nyhan Anthoney (embassy officer). Mostly owing to the writing, Nicholas is a bit shallow and paternalistic. Mohammed also is two dimensional although Kurut's brooding good looks wordlessly enlarge the role. Since we never see the depth of love between the men prior to Mohammed's arrest, we cannot fully judge the distance of their journey.
Two directing oddities: Mohammed repeatedly cautions discretion, yet kisses Nicholas before an open, uncurtained window where Nicholas later stands naked. Also: a famous English poem, 'Under an English Heaven,' is recited to Russian music. Surely it should be recited to music by Elgar.