There comes a degree late in “A Knock on the Roof,” a brand new solo play about unusual individuals underneath bombardment in Gaza, when the boundary blurs unsettlingly and the viewers can now not inform: Is Mariam, the central character, awake or asleep? Are we watching a horrifying actuality or a worry that’s taking form in her desires?
Her on a regular basis existence is fraught sufficient. Portrayed with simple approachability by Khawla Ibraheem, who can also be the playwright, Mariam spends her days wrangling Nour, her 6-year-old son, and meticulously planning how she would escape her house constructing if the Israeli Protection Forces attacked it.
“You see,” she tells us in narrator mode, “two wars in the past, they began utilizing a way known as ‘a knock on the roof.’ It’s a small bomb they drop to alert us that we now have 5 to fifteen minutes to evacuate earlier than the precise rocket destroys the constructing.”
So Mariam trains to run so far as potential in 5 minutes, weighed down by no matter requirements she will be able to put in a backpack — plus Nour, a heavy sleeper who will have to be carried if the bombs come at evening. She places him by means of practice-run paces alongside her mom, who strikes in when the unnamed warfare begins, not as a result of it’s safer however simply to be with them.
Directed by Oliver Butler at New York Theater Workshop, “A Knock on the Roof” lengthy predates the present warfare between Israel and Hamas. As a program word explains, the play started as a 10-minute monologue that Ibraheem, who lives within the Golan Heights, wrote in 2014. A lot of its additional improvement got here within the yr earlier than the battle erupted in October 2023.
The immediacy of the present warfare is what makes this manufacturing, which strikes to London in February, so well timed. Surprisingly, that doesn’t essentially give it a dramatic benefit.
A part of the present’s tonal problem comes from attempting to stability comedian absurdity with plain darkness. Half stems from the banality of unusual life, nonetheless to an ideal extent unremarkable even when wrenched and mangled by warfare. The destruction that looms and threatens is as but, for Mariam and her household, at bay.
To the viewers, Mariam is pleasant and relatable, addressing us immediately, nudging us to think about ourselves in her sneakers. What number of pairs of underwear would we pack if we needed to flee? How far can we run in 5 minutes? (A voice from the gang on the efficiency I noticed: “I can’t run in any respect.”)
At the same time as Mariam’s nervousness escalates, she maintains her facade.
“I act regular,” she says. This can be a motif.
However the play, which appears to waver between fleshing Mariam out and letting her stay an Everywoman, doesn’t permit us to know her very nicely. An eventual cluster of particulars about her relationship along with her husband, who’s overseas learning for a grasp’s diploma, feels inorganic.
For essentially the most half, Ibraheem retains the play’s focus tight on Mariam, her mom and candy, mischievous Nour; when it opens wider to absorb the town round them, it positive aspects a welcome heft.
Butler, returning to the theater the place he had such nice success with “What the Structure Means to Me,” tries to encourage a connection between actor and spectators by seating among the crowd onstage and leaving the lights up on the viewers for chunk of the present. Each parts really feel like obstacles to our immersion in Mariam’s life. (The minimal set is by Frank J Oliva, lighting by Oona Curley.)
“A Knock on the Roof” needs to attract us shut and deepen our understanding. I’m undecided it succeeds at that. However we do depart realizing that Mariam, whether or not awake or asleep, has been trapped inside a nightmare all alongside.
A Knock on the Roof
Via Feb. 16 at New York Theater Workshop; nytw.org. Operating time: 1 hour 25 minutes.