Displaying items by tag: Jackalope Theatre Company

You’ll want to join this “Neighborhood Watch," a fast-paced comedy having its world premiere in Jackalope Theatre’s performance space in the Broadway Armory. Harsh Gagoomal plays Mo Rizvi with deft emotional range, a bearded, swarthy Middle Easterner who has moved into a house in white suburbia, in the weeks just after Donald Trump's return to the presidency.

Unfortunately for Mo—short for Mohammed—his bothersome next door neighbors are the widowed GenX-er Paul (Frank Nall), who wears his excessively liberal credentials on his sleeve (literally, a Bernie Sanders sweatshirt) with a Harris-Walz sign in the yard; and on the other side, Shawn (Victor Holstein) a 30-something ever-Trumper.

The broad comedic interplay between these opposites could lead one to believe ”Neighborhood Watch” is a lighthearted farce. Even the bouncy scene segue music keeps the situation-comedic vibe going.

But playwright Rehana Lew Mirza, who was commissioned to write "Neighborhood Watch" by the National New Play Network has more in store for us, using the laughter to slyly lure the audience into deeper matters, gradually, though not too deep. It's funny, first and foremost. Kudos to Karina Patel, Jackalope's darmaturg, for snagging this lovely script.

Shawn is suspicious as he eyes Mo unpacking household goods—a pressure cooker, electronics, a tank of propane and a mysterious black backpack, laughably obvious memes of terrorism, all in plain view. But ever-nosy Shawn feels compelled to draw Paul’s attention to the “danger” lurking from the new neighbor.

After he blithely disregards Shawn and introduces himself to Mo, we cringe at Paul’s virtue-signalling as he holds Mo hostage to a ham-handed, somewhat oblique “supportive” conversation. Paul is so caught in his conundrum of trying not to offend that he becomes even more offensive. Mo finally figures out this neighbor has cast him in the role of suffering minority, a moment of tokenism that’s laughable too, because it’s so exaggerated. As Harsh Gagoomal conveys Mo’s internal dialog so effectively, we can see him bemused on the inside as he figures out Paul’s designs on establishing a relationship—Paul the white savior, Mo the suffering minority. That’s how unconscious racism exhibits itself in the liberal camp.

Mirza imparts a comic air on all this, reminding me of TV’s “All in the Family,” if Archie Bunker were a liberal, with his Meathead son-in-law the bumbling Shawn next door. The assertive Gloria character would be Becca, Paul’s 22-year-old daughter Becca (Jamie Herb). After Paul advises her to dress more modestly, in deference to what he imagines are Mo’s Islamic religious leanings, Becca goes to meet Mo for herself, and we find both as their truest selves: mutual date material. Sparks fly.

Reporting back later to her dad, Becca gives us a laugh-filled take on how GenZ handle their GenX parents’ social missteps, excoriating him for “man-splaining, then coaching her father with that query I hear frequently enough from my adult son: “What have we learned?”

We also see Paul and Shawn partnering on common ground, as they spy on Becca to see what she’s up to with Mo. Shawn has his own romantic design on Becca, while Paul is just a run-of-the-mill helicopter parent of his generation.

Mirza brings us something deeper as the plot thickens around the core of the drama: the unexpected arrival of Mo’s “cousin” Javed at the end of Act I. Fresh out of federal jail, and now a devoted Muslim, Javid’s domineering relationship to Mo fills Act II. Avoiding spoilers, we learn there is much more between Mo and Javed than we might have guessed. We also get a small recount of the emotional dynamics involved in Javed’s journey to and from extremism, as he alights on a deeply held spiritual connection to Islam.

In “Neighborhood Watch,” Mirza scores light-hearted laughs at the expense of white liberal culture and the racism of a different sort that can thrive among. Stereotypes abound. And it’s funny. Comedy is all in the timing and director (and casting director) Kaiser Ahmed nails it. Nothing drags.

Also notable are the sets (Tianxuan Chen) and in particular the lighting (Maaz Ahmed), who instead of merely darkening areas that are inactive, casts them in a bluish light, a small thing perhaps but I thought it innovative.

“Neighborhood Watch” runs through June 28 at Broadway Armory Park, 5917 N Broadway in Chicago