BENEATH THE SHEETS:
YUSSEF EL GUINDI ON THREESOME
On the eve of
Threesome’s world
premiere at Portland
Center Stage,
playwright Yussef El
Guindi took a
moment to shed some
light on his new play,
originally developed at PCS’s JAW: A
Playwrights Festival in 2013. He
answered these questions about
Threesome from Egypt, where he was
currently working on a co-adaptation of
the Japanese epic The Tale of Heike
(with playwright Philip Kan Gotanda),
along with another new play, The
Talented Ones.
Q: What was your impetus for
tackling this topic?
What informs my plays is usually some
abiding and festering sense of injustice
about something. I came to understand
the play was about a woman asserting
her right to her own body.
As always when I write plays that
involve Middle-Eastern characters,
I try to find parallels that a Western
audience might be able to relate to. In
this case, it would be that the violence
some Egyptian women experience is
also experienced by American women
in other contexts.
Q: Explain your use of comedy as an
entryway in this play.
I didn’t start out to write a comedy. I
have sometimes begun a play with the
intention of writing a comedy, but not
with Threesome. In general, I have an
amused point of view with most things
I write about. I think we’re funny as
a species (almost as funny as cats). So
even when I stray into dark areas, I still
find human behavior weird and comical
at times. The comedy in Threesome is
situational. We become a little funnier
when we’re naked, and sexually
awkward — in that we make ourselves
so very vulnerable in those situations. A
slight turn (new information, a different
context) and that vulnerability can also
then become heart-wrenching. But the
intention was not to be funny. It’s that
the characters find themselves in a
very awkward, and somewhat comical,
situation. When their situation shifts,
so does the tone of the play.
Q: Could you talk a little about
your inspiration for the character
of Leila?
I come from a family of very strong
women. While there is of course a
strong paternal/patriarchal paradigm
in place in a lot of areas around the
world, including Egypt, I think it’s
a Western Orientalist tic to want to
perceive Middle Eastern women
as passive individuals waiting to be
rescued by Western enlightenment.
A lot of women from that region
would beg to differ. The situation is
much more complicated and nuanced
on the ground. When one talks of
writing three-dimensional Middle
Eastern characters, one is really just
talking about presenting characters
that have their own moral agency
(and are not mere background props
for the Westerner-in-the-MiddleEast narrative). Also, something as
simple as having the right to engage
in conversations that aren’t fraught
with the latest Western headlines
about the region, or to fall into any
of the tropes Westerners have of the
region and of the sexes there (e.g., the
Middle Eastern woman is a fragile,
abused, put-upon creature, and
somewhere in the play/film/TV show,
the Arab/Muslim male is sure to slap
her, because, well, according to these
stories, that’s just what Arab/Muslim
males do. They can’t help themselves.
Or so we are led to believe).
I’ve wanted to introduce more
layered and nuanced Middle Eastern
characters in my plays. There seems
to be a dearth of them in most
entertainment in the West.
This interview has been edited for brevity.
You can read the full interview with El
Guindi at pcs.org/El-Guindi-on-Threesome.
TELL US WHAT YOU THINK OF THE SHOW!
Find us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
THREESOME | CAST
ALIA ATTALLAH
Leila
A Minnesota native,
Alia received
her B.F.A. from
the University of
Minnesota/Guthrie
Actor Training
Program. In the
years that followed, she acted in various
professional projects, such as King
Lear and Ibsen’s Ghosts. In 2011, Alia
moved to New York Ci