The National Theatre of Scotland and A Play, A Pie, and A Pint mini-season focusing on the Arab world reaches its halfway point this week with a lively slice of Moroccan in- yer-face theatre directed by Grid Iron's Ben Harrison.
So far the variety of work has negated any political repetition, or the onset of compassion fatigue. That trend continues with Jaouad Essounani's tragi-comic two-hander.
While the politics of Morocco's current situation aren't addressed directly (King Mohammed holding onto the throne by ushering in elections last year, which for the first time handed power to the opposition party of moderate Islamsists), Essounani's picture of contemporary Moroccan life, and its shifting political landscape over the past 40 years, is intriguing.
The piece is told through a series of personal history vignettes featuring Hadda, a young woman relating to God her exploitation at the hands of a succession of men, her conversion to Jihad and Hassan (a fine performance by El Razzougui), a young Moroccan male who at one stage finds himself a cause celebre after being detained at Guantanamo Bay.
"All these stories are cliches," says Hadda (Juliana Yazbek) at the beginning. And if Essounani seems to be playing with Western attitudes with these lust-in-the-dust tales of poverty, oppression, disenfranchisement, pop culture influences and political action, at the same time he seems to be confirming the stereotypes are rooted in truth.
What really stands out is the scintillating, multi-tasking performance of Yazbeck, making her UK debut here, and surely a name to look out for in the future.
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