THE HANGOVER REPORT – Rehana Lew Mirza’s punchy, familiar HATEF**CK dutifully entertains

Sendhil Ramamurthy and Kavi Ladnier in Rehana Lew Mirza's "Hatef**k", courtesy of WP Theater and Colt Coeur.

Sendhil Ramamurthy and Kavi Ladnier in Rehana Lew Mirza’s “Hatef**k”, courtesy of WP Theater and Colt Coeur.

Last weekend, I caught the Off-Broadway production of Hatef**k by Rehana Lew Mirza, courtesy of WP Theater and Colt Coeur. The play continues the dialogue started by Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer Prize-winning and much-produced Disgraced. Ms. Mirza’s play tells the story of a budding but turbulent tug-of-war relationship between an idealistic English college professor and a commercially successful novelist. Both – if you haven’t gathered already – are Muslim American.

First and foremost, it’s always a refreshing pleasure to see people of color with different perspectives represented onstage. In this case, the vehicle is a solid specimen. Ms. Mirza’s twohander covers a lot of regularly and heavily debated issues (e.g., idealism vs. compromising, the nature and role of art, etc.) in the play’s brisk 90 minutes, sometimes at the consequence of subtle character development. Nevertheless, the harshly-named play is dutifully well-made, with its fair share of punchy dialogue that makes some of its scenes crackle.

The production has been directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt, who has given the play a sharp staging that keeps things moving along at a nice clip. This serves the material well, given some generic, familiar-feeling stretches in Ms. Mirza’s play. Similarly, the acting by the attractive duo of Kavi Ladnier and Sendhil Ramamurthy as the feuding couple is entertaining to watch and appropriately confrontational. I just wish they had characters a tad more well-shaded to work with.

RECOMMENDED

 

HATEF**CK
Off-Broadway, Play
Women’s Project Theatre, co-produced by Colt Coeur
1 hour, 30 minutes (without an intermission)
Through March 31

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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