Review: SONS OF THE PROPHET, Hampstead Theatre

Who would have thought that eleven years could be such a long time in theatre? After its premiere in 2011, Stephen Karam's Pulitzer-nominated Sons of the Prophet has made a transatlantic voyage to the Hampstead Theatre. The result is like looking back in time. One almost feels nostalgic for the Obama-age optimism it languishes in; if it were written post-Trump, post-truth, and post-pandemic, would it be so sanguine?

At its core, Sons of the Prophet is a meditation on suffering. What does it mean to suffer? How do we find solace in that pain? Karam extrapolates the bones of this philosophical investigation and cloaks it in different skins. He touches on Lebanese identity, homosexuality, cultural appropriation, and illness through American-Lebanese brothers Joseph and Charles. The brothers are struggling to balance their sexuality, identity, and family after the accidental death of their father due to a prank gone awry whilst a journalist and a publisher try to harvest their story for their own gain.

Darting from one synapse of suffering to another clogs the play's moral nexus with confusion. Karam wants to mask his characters' existential and physical pain in the absurd and muse on the pointlessness of it all: one must imagine Sisyphus happy and so on. But he mishandles the tragicomic weight of absurdity leading the play down a path into atonal sitcom silliness. The result is a cloying cross between Seinfeld and Chekhov that never finds a middle ground between darkness and comedy.

It reeks of that American sitcom sensibility where shouting and being unruly is mistaken for wit; a studio laugh track wouldn't be out of place. This isn't to say that Karam's writing isn't interesting. There are poignant moments, Joseph's frequent hospital visits where he learns of his deteriorating health, it's just that the sitcom scent overpowers any heartfelt philosopical musings.

Saccharine sentimentality spreads like a cancer to the rest of the production: one can sense the story's gears shifting and rotating to deliver a palatable ending even if it means incoherent character beats, awkward romantic sub-plots, and one too many serendipitous coincidences for disbelief to be suspended.

Director Bijan Sheibani does what he can to craft an honest core for the production but, rather like Sisyphus's struggle, it's an uphill one. The stage is sparse and an economic set demands warmth to fill the space from performances, but Sheibani's direction is oddly monotone leaving the production cold and without a pulse. The performers deliver a universally valiant effort to carve an emotional landscape for their characters, but artless writing dooms them to failure. Tacky accents and a lack of much needed comic timing to galvanise the humour don't help.

Even if not every Broadway import lands, it's crucial that they have the opportunity to take flight. After the sudden resignation of Hampstead Theatre's artistic director Roxana Silbert, the theatre's future as a space dedicated to new writing hangs in the balance. Sons of the Prophet is not the needed panacea, but that is the nature of risk taking: sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn't.

Sons of the Prophet runs at Hampstead Theatre until 14 January 2023

Photo Credit: Marc Brenner

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