Khaled Abol Naga as Nabil Hassan and Inji El Gammal as Ava Wolski share a tender moment together in Omar Bakry’s In the Shadow of Her Father.
In Omar Bakry’s In the Shadow of Her Father, directed by Vincent Scott, Ava Wolski (Inji El Gammal), in her forties, lives a quiet life in rural Ohio with her adoptive father, Walter (Roger Hendricks Simon), in his seventies. Walter is a man haunted by alcoholism and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But when a stranger appears at Ava’s door, he ignites buried secrets and desires. Tackling alcoholism, PTSD, and the immigrant experience, Bakry’s drama is both a meditation on survival and a tender love story.
When the lights rise, the living room sits in silence, but the quiet is abruptly shattered by the sharp, insistent ringing of the doorbell. Ava enters in a bathrobe and slippers and, speaking in a non-American accent, she calls out, ”Yes, yes, I’m coming!” What Ava doesn’t yet realize is that opening this door will set her life on a course she never imagined.
El Gammal plays Ava Wolski, and Roger Hendricks Simon portrays her adoptive father, Walter Wolski, who is battling alcoholism and PTSD.
Although she’s a reluctant good Samaritan, Ava lets in a clean-cut Egyptian man in his forties. He explains that his car broke down and his phone died; she gestures to her landline for him to use. To her surprise, on the phone the stranger slips into Arabic, speaking softly to his mother, telling her that he won’t make it on time to Pittsburgh to meet his Aunt Rahab, who was to introduce him to a potential wife. Hanging up, he switches back to English without missing a beat. Ava offers him coffee. As they sit at the kitchen table, their small talk carries an unexpected charge. She learns his name—Nabil Hassan (Khaled Abol Naga)—that he was born in Egypt, and that he owns a falafel shop in Cleveland. In turn, Nabil discovers that Ava is adopted and was born in Lebanon—a revelation that seems to intrigue him deeply—and now manages a pet shop.
Their exchange, however, is abruptly interrupted by the arrival of Walter, shuffling in wearing an old sweat suit and worn slippers. Ava introduces Nabil, explains his predicament, and assures her father she’ll drive him into town for a tow truck. Walter, stubborn as ever, refuses to let her and insists on handling it himself. Ava can only watch helplessly as her father and Nabil step out the front door together, leaving her standing in the hushed house—suddenly feeling like a different person, though she doesn’t yet know why.
During this two-act play, Ava, who wants more from life that just being a caregiver, is torn between her devotion to her father and her growing attraction to Nabil. There’s no question that she loves Walter—after all, he brought her to this country from Lebanon at age 7 and has been her “everything” for as long as she can remember. Still, his alcoholism and PTSD have wreaked havoc on their lives, and despite her pleas he refuses therapy. In one charged scene, as he cleans his army handgun, Jen Leno’s atmospheric lighting vividly simulates a flashback, and Walter suddenly lashes out at Ava:
You know, if I’m too much for you to bear and this is your way of complaining! You can always just go. I won’t stop you. I know it’s what you really want deep inside.
El Gammal stars as Ava opposite Naga’s Nabil in Bakry’s three-hander. Photographs by Carol Rosegg.
By contrast, Nabil offers Ava the promise of new horizons. He takes her to Cleveland, treats her to lunch at his falafel shop, and shows her a world far removed from her father’s volatility. He even shows her Cleveland’s large Middle-Eastern community, to which Ava quips: “I’ve never seen so many people who—well—look like me!” Light-hearted, even-tempered, and a teetotaler, Nabil admits to Ava that he once struggled with substance abuse—but that chapter of his life is firmly behind him.
The action unfolds on Christina Shrewsbury’s claustrophobic set, which evokes the stifling isolation of a rustic Ohio home. A wooden-framed sofa with plaid cushions anchors the living room. A grandfather clock marks the quiet passage of time, and framed family photographs line the back wall, hinting at buried histories and unspoken loss. A crucifix mounted at stage right lends the story an unsettling moral weight.
In the Shadow of Her Father, with its excellent cast, speaks powerfully to our unsettled times, engaging with themes of PTSD, alcoholism, prejudice, and displacement that have long occupied American stages. But Bakry’s contribution is significant: instead of approaching these issues broadly, he filters them through one family’s story, creating a work where the personal and political collide in an urgent way. In doing so, the play deepens the conversation rather than merely repeating it.
In the Shadow of her Father plays through Aug. 31 at 59E59 Theaters (59 E. 59th St.). Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; matinees are at 2:30 p.m. Sunday. For tickets and more information, visit 59e59.org.
Playwright: Omar Bakry
Director: Vincent Scott
Set: Christina Shrewsbury
Lighting: Jen Leno
Costumes: Rosie Henderson
Sound: Cody Hom
Original Music: Khaled Abol Naga
