In Language Rooms An Egyptian American Interrogator Struggles To Prove His Loyalty To The U S A

Egyptian American playwright Yussef El Guindi is mostly known to Chicago audiences from several productions with Silk Road Rising, including the world premiere of his 2005 comedy Ten Acrobats in an Amazing Leap of Faith, about an Egyptian immigrant family wrestling with assimilation in America. Back of the Throat, in which an Arab American man in post-9/11 America faces down government agents who take over his home in an increasingly hostile “investigation,” followed a few months later.

El Guindi’s blend of menace and absurdity recalls Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, not to mention almost everything Harold Pinter wrote. But El Guindi isn’t imagining dystopia—not when images of Abu Ghraib remain in our minds and daily xenophobic and Islamophobic assaults from the White House fill the news.

Through 5/18: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Mon 5/6 and Wed 5/15, 7:30 PM, Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave, 773-697-3830, brokennosetheatre.com, pay what you can.