The Domestic Crusaders

The Domestic Crusaders is a play by Wajahat Ali about a Pakistani-American Muslim family.^[1]

The play made its Off Broadway premiere at the Nuyorican Poets Café on September 11, 2009. The story is about the lives of a Pakistani-American family grappling with their own internal trials and tribulations, the changing dynamics of American society and a globalized, post-9/11 world.^[2] McSweeney's published the play in the Fall of 2010.

Plot

With a keen sense of timing, this dramatic-comedy utilizes the generational and culture-driven political and social evolution of American society following 9/11. Six members of a Pakistani-American Muslim family, spanning three generations, reunite at the family home to celebrate the youngest son's 21st birthday. Each individual family member, or "domestic crusader", attempts to assert his or her individual definition of self and destiny in the face of collective family and societal constraints, fears and misunderstandings.

Setting

The play takes place over the course of one day during the present time, in an upper middle class suburban family home of a Muslim American family of Pakistani origins.

Reviews

"The Domestic Crusaders is exactly the sort of theater we need today. The gulf that separates cultures must be bridged and Art is one of our best hopes." -Academy Award-winning actress and screenplay writer, Emma Thompson

"This play is brilliant. Moving. Shapely. Clever. Funny. And the cast is amazing!" —Toni Morrison, Nobel Prize–winning author

"Ali's sensitive treatment of the tensions and triumphs of the Muslim American community gives viewers a rare window into this often discussed but seldom heard member of the American mosaic. His debut play is destined to be a social and cultural phenomena." --Dalia Mogahed, President Obama's Advisor on Faith

"Wajahat Ali is a major new voice in American literature. His play is to Muslim American theater what A Raisin in the Sun is to African American theater." —Pulitzer Prize nominated author Mitch Berman

"The Domestic Crusaders is fast, funny, whip-smart and both constantly surprising and deeply edifying. If you see only one irreverent, hilarious, profound, furious and big-hearted play about a Pakistani-American family living in a post-9-11 world, make it this one." —Dave Eggers, Pulitzer Prize nominated author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and author of Zeitoun

The play was featured in a TIME.com video piece called "Making American Muslim Theater."

Characters

• Hakim is the grandfather, a retired, Pakistani army officer, played by Abbas Zaidi, Saqib Mausoof, and Swaraj Sehajpal.
• Salman is the middle-aged son who oscillates between prideful exuberance and the daily grind that preys on his feelings of self-worth, played by Imran Javaid, Atif Qureshi, and Shahab Riazi.
• Khulsoom is Salman's wife who misses her native land and struggles to impart her traditional values onto her American-raised children, played by Nidhi Singh, Vidhu Singh, and Deepti Gupta.
• Salahuddin is the eldest son who is a successful businessman, played by Kamran Khan, Kashif Naqvi, and Paras Chaudhari.
• Fatima is the middle child and a social justice activist, played by Monisha Shiva, Sadiya Shaikh and Khushboo Shah.
• Ghafur is the youngest child, played by Adeel Ahmed, Atif Naqvi, and Ali Khan, with Imran W. Sheikh as the understudy for all the male roles.

History

Ali, who is an attorney and writer in the Bay Area, began writing the play in 2001 while studying at the University of California, Berkeley. The idea for the play came from Ali's writing professor, Ishmael Reed, who encouraged him to write a theatrical piece that shed light on the inner lives of American Muslims, an increasingly marginalized American religious community.^[1]

In 2004, the play established its "grassroots/seat of the pants" mode of operation with a series of staged readings launched at the Mehran Restaurant in Newark, California, a popular hub for community and family events of San Francisco Bay Area's South Asians, and continued with Oakland Public Library sponsored events.

Ali explained his choice of the play's ironic title in the February 2011 issue of American Theatre, saying it refers to "hundreds of years of alleged inherent acrimony between the West and Islam....I wanted to reframe that within this multi-hyphenated Muslim-American family. These 'crusaders,' instead of being blood-thirsty warmongers, are nuanced, hypocritical, self-involved, quirky people. Instead of Kalashnikovs and swords and missiles, we see them fighting with stinging barbs and wit and regrets and secrets—good old-fashioned drama and melodrama."

Premiere

The two-act play officially premiered as a 2005 showcase production^[3] at the Tony Award winning Berkeley Repertory Theatre. The play was and continues to be directed by acclaimed choreographer & director, Carla Blank. Its NYC debut, on September 11, 2009 at the Nuyorican Poets Café was followed by a sold-out five-week run, which broke attendance records for plays at this landmark Off Broadway theater. In his Nuyorican program notes, Ali said he chose this date because "I believe by proactively confronting the history of that day through art and dialogue we can finally move beyond the anger, the violence, the extremism, the separatism, the pain and the regret, and build a bridge of understanding and reconciliation."

The play received its international premiere performances at MuslimFest in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada on July 31 and August 1, 2010, and was showcased in Washington, D.C.'s Atlas Performing Arts Center November 12, 2010 and the Kennedy Center's Millennium Hall on November 14, 2010. The one-hour performance of Act One remains archived on the Kennedy Center website.

See also

• List of cultural references to the September 11 attacks

References

External links

• MSNBC Article about the play
• MSNBC Interview by Pat Battle
• Additional Reviews