BWW Reviews: ALL AMERICAN GIRL - A Mistitled Anti-American Rally I Wanted to Unsee
By: Gil Kaan Jul. 04, 2015
All American Girl/by Wendy Graf/directed by Anita Khanzadian/ Lounge Theatre/thru July 26, 2015
Playwright Wendy Graf totally deceives in naming her world premiere All American Girl. A much more appropriate and honest title would have been Anti-American Girl. Graf's one-woman show begins with a failed bombing and ends with a successful one. What starts as an interesting character study on a semi-privileged Caucasian American teenager finding her goals (a wonderfully charismatic Jeanne Syquia) quickly evolves into (what I can only envision as) a 90-minute Islam recruitment rally with instructions on how to make a bomb and how to plant it.
Being an American allows for freedom of speech; but what gall the InterACT Theatre Company has to open Graf's piece on July 4th weekend when actual threats of terrorists' attacks loom over our heads.
All who find justification for anti-American acts offensive and/or are just happy to be living in America should run from this as fast as the main character did after she planted both bombs.
Additional reviewer's note:
After writing this review, a representative of the show contacted me to inform me that I "misconstrued the intent and meaning of the play." "This play is not endorsing terrorism in any way. It is a psychological study of how a seemingly ordinary American might get seduced by radicalism. In no way does it at any point endorse terrorism."
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