Petrol Station
“An extraordinary new play that arrives at our nation’s capitol with such uncanny timing it will make your head spin. The work is feverishly in-tune with both the unhinged state of our political life and the chaos that rages throughout much of the Middle East.”
About.
The Petrol Station, Premiered March 24th, 2017
Running time, 95 minutes
Performed in English
Co-producers: The Eisenhower Theater at
the Kennedy Center; ArtsEmerson, Boston; NYU Gallatin School of Individualised Study
Sulayman Al Bassam Playwright & Director
Cecil Blutcher Noah
Kenneth De Abrew Khan
Nasser Faris Father
Christina Helena Girl
Zachary Infante Bayu
Galen Kane Manager
Irungu Mutu Joseph
Hardy Pinnell Trafficker
John Skelley Cashier
Pamela Salling Production Stage Manager
Lauren Stern Assistant Stage Manager
Brittany Anjou Composer of “Cashier’s Ballad”
Sam Shalabi Composer
Carlos J Soto Costume Design
Eric Soyer Set and Lighting Design
Karin White Props Design
Nick Schwartz-Hall Producer
Rachel Katwan Associate Producer
Ryan Gastelum Production Manager
Frances Caperchi, Chandler Jez Production Assistants
Deborah Brown Casting Director
Blair Simmons Social Media Coordinator
Nahed El-Huni Office Manager
Special Thanks: to ArtsEmerson for an essential technical residency to build this production and for their immense and invaluable professional support; to the NYU Gallatin School for foundational support of the 2015 workshop of Petrol Station; to Alejandro Moreno for assistance with Spanish language translations; to Hala Omran for use of her recorded voice as the Mother.
Drawing inspiration from Sumerian myth, Palestinian refugee literature and Americana iconography around the Gas Station; Petrol Station portrays a modern dystopia of wild, open spaces, where defunct ideologies, desperate migrants and opportunistic traffickers vie for supremacy and the unattainable body of a woman.
This production marks the first time that Al Bassam worked with a cast of actors who all identify as American: an experiment in allegory, further exploring questions of trans-cultural appropriation and identity politics.
Director’s Note
This is a trans-border play in which the parameters of geography, religion, and civilizational memory are perpetually shifting. The journeys of the protagonists emphasize the arc of the transgressive momentum in the piece. By making the choice to explore the text with a superb team of American actors, the process invites and heightens these limitrophe probings of territorial identities, a theme that strikes me as being central to this moment of accelerated globalization. This is also a play that comes to life during the first hundred days of the U. S. Presidential mandate of Donald Trump. The timing of the creation of this piece is a poignant reminder that the ‘back yard’ (aka the Arab World) where US Foreign Policy is used to dumping tyrants, is also an entry point into any home.
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