Thursday, April 20

Thursday after work I ran with just enough time left over for a shower before our Arts event. The event was called "Back of the Throat" and it was held at the Chicago Temple in the loop.
The play was about the interrogation of an Arab man after 9/11. The actors were very good. So good that at times I wanted to yell at them during the play to stop manipulating the Arab man. It was challenging, honest, frightening, disturbing at times. There were parts that were appropriately awkward...and we were not sure how to feel. I was amazed that this interrogation/manipulation actually goes on in the US.

There were great feelings of fear, anger, frustration. I hated the FBI agents. They kept flipping back and forth between treating him as innocent and treating him like a terrorist because he was Arab. He was an artist and had books about guns and basically any topic in his apartment, but these FBI agents kept speculating and looking too deeply into his books and his background and relationships.

I really liked the different interaction between Khadid and other characters. They did an awesome job of using the one stage to show the different stories everyone had. I enjoyed the mix of humor and seriuosness to keep the audience captivated and keep the play real.