Writers Theatre’s “A Distinct Society”/Photo: Michael Brosilow
Eight days after taking office in 2017, President Trump issued his infamous Travel Ban, aka Muslim Ban, an executive order slamming the door shut on visitors from seven countries, all predominantly Islamic. (Excluded from the ban were majority Muslim nations in which Trump did business.) Although rescinded by President Biden, the measure lingers in the background, a symbol of the nation’s wholesale transformation from a self-declared place of refuge into a walled, gated and paranoid community.
To its credit, Kareem Fahmy’s “A Distinct Society” (he also directs this Writers Theatre production) addresses the viciously xenophobic Muslim Ban, bringing back into awareness something many or most of us would like to forget. But the play doesn’t shed much light on this dark moment of recent history. What we get is a cluttered, disjointed and melodramatic theatrical experience that fails not only to make a clear statement of protest and outrage, but also to hold our attention as an audience. Only ninety-five minutes long without intermission, this play seems subjectively longer.
Based very loosely on fact, the story has the coolest of settings: the real-life Haskell Free Library, which stands exactly on the border between Québec and Vermont and serves communities on both sides of the line. Built in 1904 by an American lumber baron with a Canadian wife, the small but ornate library with attached opera house serves the reading and cultural needs of its bilingual patrons. A black line on the floor—a sort of mock Berlin Wall—separates “U.S.” and “Canadian” sectors of the library, whimsically underscoring the artificial, vaguely surreal nature of all political boundaries.
Ruling this peaceable kingdom deep in the rural north country is Manon, a French-Canadian version of “The Music Man”’s Marian the Librarian. Her surface asperity hides a passionate (and musical) inner life, channeled through the character of Carmen, whose arias she sings in amateur shows staged in the upstairs theater. Manon’s own heartstrings are plucked by Bruce, the U.S. border guard whose territory includes the line-straddling library and the attractive and unattached—if sometimes stiff and bossy—librarian in charge.
Into this quiet space, with its budding romance, enters Peyman, an Iranian doctor worried about his daughter Shirin, a medical student in Boston. Encouraged by a pseudonymous Facebook message, Peyman arranges a quick, quasi-legal visit with Shirin within the protective granite walls of the Haskell Library, under the suspicious eye of border cop Bruce. Witnessing all of these complicated romantic and familial maneuverings is the unhappy teenager Declan, a Northern Irish immigrant to Canada who is treated as a pariah by his Québécois schoolmates. He visits the borderline library on a daily basis to escape their teasing and to lose himself in his beloved Green Lantern graphic novels.
There are moments where the play hits a strong, solid note, as when Bruce goes ballistic with the two Iranian visitors, courageously protecting homeland security against the “threat” of a concerned father giving family recipes to his homesick, underfed daughter. However, for the most part the show sidesteps the issues it raises about discriminatory border policies and the casual brutality of a garrison state, shifting its focus to the history of the Québec separatist movement, which defines Canada’s Francophone population as a “distinct society.” Yes, it’s true, there are chauvinist, mean-spirited elements within Québécois nationalism. But the bigger truth is that the effort of a small, embattled cultural minority not to be swallowed up isn’t morally comparable to the world’s richest and most powerful nation classifying a good chunk of humanity as undesirables, based on their faith and skin tone.
On a production level, scenic designer Paige Hathaway deserves applause for creating a library setting so detailed and lifelike you can almost hear an echoing shush. The set is dominated by a gigantic mounted moose head, lending a humorous visual grace note to an otherwise fairly heavy-handed show. Kudos also to lighting designer Brian Elston, whose restrained, ever-shifting palette subtly suggests the passage of time.
Writers Theatre’s “A Distinct Society,” with Aila Ayilam Peck (Shirin) and Cole Keriazakos (Declan)/Photo: Michael Brosilow
But the acting by the usually reliable Kate Fry as Manon—and by Amir Abdullah as Bruce, Rom Barkhordar as Peyman, Cole Keriazakos as Declan and Aila Ayilam Peck as Shirin—lacks contrast and nuance. There’s a sameness to the overlong scenes, as the characters pace energetically before hitting their marks and loudly and often angrily spilling their deepest secrets to the strangers they meet in this oddly empty library. Playwright-director Fahmy permits his cast too many drama-queen moments, and the play never achieves a propulsive rhythm or tension. An occasional touch of silence and stillness punctuating the histrionics would do much to give this production emotional shape and resonance.
There’s a point where Manon, dressed as the lusty Carmen, throws herself into the eager arms of Bruce on a library couch, before collecting herself and sending the hot-and-bothered border guard packing. “A Distinct Society” does something similar to its audience, flirting with relevance and purpose but never quite sealing the deal. The situation depicted here, an outgrowth of the deeper problem of toxic nationalism, is concrete and innately political. The personal good intentions and grandiose philosophizing offered here, especially at the show’s opaque ending, might distract us, but they won’t do much to save us.
Writers Theatre, 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe, (847)242-6000, writerstheatre.org. $35-$90. Through July 23.
