by Mike Hoban
‘We Live in Cairo’ – Book, Music, and Lyrics by Daniel & Patrick Lazour. Directed by Taibi Magar. Choreography by Samar Haddad King; Music Direction by Madeline Smith. Presented by American Repertory Theater at the Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle St., Cambridge, through June 16.
The American Repertory Theater’s engaging production of We Live in Cairo, a musical retelling of the Arab Spring protests that led to the end of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year reign, is further proof that convention-defying musicals can be lot more satisfying than some of the formulaic pablum being offered up on Broadway stages in recent years. This latest work continues a run of adventurous original musicals by the A.R.T., and follows up last year’s edgy jukebox musical Jagged Little Pill and the magnificent 2018-2019 season opener The Black Clown with an unconventional piece from newcomers Daniel & Patrick Lazour, a pair of twenty-somethings from Boylston, MA. And while Cairo lacks the blockbuster score (by Alanis Morrissette) of Jagged or the sheer artistry of Black Clown, it’s an ambitious and creative first effort.
The show opens with the cast assembled downstage, somewhat riskily engaging the audience to sing along to the show’s recurring refrain, “I was one person/Who had an idea/Who made it words/And someone heard/Someone heard” before the show even begins. The story then follows the lives of six millennial political activists living in Cairo, beginning just before the events that fired the protests in Tahrir Square that led to Mubarak’s resignation. The group hangs out in an abandoned warehouse, spending a good deal of their time partying, writing songs, discussing politics, and engaging in other artistic pursuits until governmental abuses compel them to become active in the movement, where they employ their artistic and social media skills to help bring the revolution to the people.
The characters that inhabit the production check the artistic millennial/hipster boxes, but are reasonably interesting and move the larger story along, even without the benefit of any meaningful dramatic arcs to the multiple storylines. There’s Fawda (Dana Saleh Omar) the most committed of the activists, who embraces that low hum of righteous anger and is willing to take reckless risks to advance the cause; Hany and Amir, the Christian songwriting brothers, with Hany (Abubakr Ali) being the more rigid, practical brother, and Amir (Jakeim Hart) the committed artist; Layla (Parisa Shahmir), the talented Muslim photographer who doubles as the (forbidden) love interest of Amir; Karim (Sharif Afifi), the affable but passionate graffiti artist; and Hassan (Gil Perez-Abraham), the outsider from the conservative family who Karim takes under his wing and also falls for – much to Hassan’s consternation.
As the 18 days of protests intensify, we see their passionate belief that they are making a difference through their actions through real grassroots activism turn to joy as Mubarak resigns. Then we also see their disappointment as the political realities of the post-revolution undo what they worked so hard for, as the military takes control a few short years later. And while the political story is riveting, the romantic subplots are not particularly compelling, so it is the music and performances that drive this energetic production. Daniel Lazour developed the score by going back and listening to Arabic (more specifically Lebanese) music that his grandfather used to play he and his brother as kids, and augmented his research by studying both Egyptian pop and folk music. The resulting score is accessible and fun, and while it has a decidedly Arabic flavor, it also has the energy of American-style indie rock songs, and there’s a beautiful duet sung by Amir and Layla. The choreography by Samar Haddad King is also high energy, as would be expected with a production featuring millennials (think American Idiot without the punk tunes), and projection and video designs by David Bengali featuring the social media messaging and newspaper accounts add an oomph to the unfolding drama.
An earlier iteration of the show won the 2016 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theater (which helps promising composers and playwrights get their work produced in New York), and although the production clearly needs some work before moving onto a larger stage (the score could use a little muscle in some of the bigger numbers and the second half of the show nearly grinds to a halt before it concludes) there’s plenty to like about this production. Like Jagged Little Pill, this world premiere puts three-dimensional (by musical theater standards anyway) millennial characters on stage doing things that matter to them – like effecting change in a screwed up world. Musical theater needs to replace its aging base and it’s not going to do it through re-stagings of The Music Man or musical interpretations of movies that weren’t that good to begin with (although Moulin Rouge was a way fun spectacle). So hats off to Diane Paulus and the A.R.T. for trying to inject new blood into the genre. We Live in Cairo may not be Les Miz, but it’s a fun ride with a solid score, and it’s well worth the trip to Harvard Square. For more information, go to: https://americanrepertorytheater.org/shows-events/we-live-in-cairo/
