If there was any doubt in your mind that the Patriot Act might not be a heavy-handed invasion of our constitutional rights, Back of the Throat was the jolt of frightening certainty needed to eliminate that doubt by clarifying our dangerous reality. Not dangerous because of the external threat of terrorists, but dangerous because of the ravaging of our civil liberties that this current administration has implemented under the guise of homeland security.
El Guindi presents two sides of a tricky equation, balancing the country's need to protect itself against future terrorist attacks with the importance of an individual citizen's rights and freedoms.
The title of Yussef El Guindi's new play, Back of the Throat, refers to an attempt by the lead character, an Arab-American writer named Khaled, to tell the government agents who show up at his door how to pronounce the first syllable of his name.
A full-length one-act somewhat cryptically titled Back of the Throat, it bristled with the fears and anguish many Arab Americans felt in the wake of the terrorist attacks on American soil. And it turned out to be a surprise underground hit-exactly the right play, in the right place, at the right time.
