With 2015’s Portland Center Stage production of Threesome, and now Artists Repertory Theatre’s The Talented Ones, Yussef El Guindi is making a name for himself. That’s good news for the playwright and for Portland. It’s been exciting to see local theater companies get the first crack at El Guindi’s innovative, darkly funny work before it goes on to acclaim in bigger theater markets like Seattle and New York. In his plays, El Guindi, who is Egyptian American and currently lives in Seattle, tends to explore the experiences of immigrants and people of color, and the complex, troubling racial dynamics that can play out in the most seemingly progressive places—something that should be relevant to your interests if you live in a city like Portland.
In The Talented Ones, this concern manifests in the frustrated marriage between Omar (John San Nicolas, doing a kind of evil Jimmy Stewart thing) and Cindy (Khanh Doan, who was excellent in last year’s You for Me for You at Portland Playhouse, and continues that streak here). Cindy and Omar met at their naturalization ceremony as young immigrants, but the dreamy compulsion that drew them together has imploded into resentment, conflict, and possibly attempted murder. Omar’s ostensibly a writer, but his commitment to his art seems to begin and end with languishing inside Starbucks overthinking things while living on Cindy’s income. Cindy, for her part, is a failed ballet dancer, and supporting Omar serves as a paralysis that—perhaps conveniently—keeps her from confronting the fact that she misses dancing. Meanwhile, Omar’s friend Patrick (Heath Koerschgen, perfectly embodying every bland white guy named Matt you’ve ever met) is trying clumsily to seduce Cindy, who’s just frustrated enough with her marriage to entertain his vaguely embarrassing propositions.