Invisible Hand shakes expectations
Award-winning playwright ties global finance to Muslim extremism in kidnap drama
There’s a lot of talk about the stock market in The Invisible Hand, Ayad Akhtar’s play about a Citibank employee kidnapped by Muslim extremists.
But theatre- goers needn’t worry about getting in over their heads.
“It’s not anywhere as complicated at The Big Short, for example,” director Richard Wolfe said, referring to the 2015 movie about the 2007-8 housing bubble collapse in the U.S.
“It talks about economics, but in general terms. There are just some high-level concepts in the sense of how the dollar became the dominant trading currency in the world. But it’s very clearly explained by the playwright.”
What The Invisible Hand is, says the director, is characterdriven. In it, captured financier Nick Bright tries to stay alive and earn his release by helping his captors play the market.
“What I love about the play is that none of the characters are black-and-white,” Wolfe said. “It’s not a melodrama.”
Bright, says Wolfe, is somewhat amoral, a free-market proponent involved in plans with corrupt government officials to privatize the water supply of Pakistan.
“He’s playing the markets, but he doesn’t have a sense of the real impact of these gigantic financial moments on the people on the ground,” Wolfe said.
The kidnappers include Dar (Conor Wylie), an ordinary citizen; an Imam, Saleem (Shaker Paleja); and a transplanted Londoner returned to Pakistan, Bashir (Munish Sharma). Craig Erickson plays Bright. David Roberts is the set designer, and Gordon Grdina contributes music.
“It’s a very male story, in a sense,” Wolfe said. “It’s about four men, and there’s a certain machismo to it. Although there are female characters spoken about, I felt we needed to add a little more of a female voice to the experience.”
Grdina, who performs Arabicinspired compositions with his trio, recommended a singer, Fathieh Honari, as the voice in the music that provides transitions between scenes. This gives The Invisible Hand “a strong female presence,” Wolfe said.
Vancouver theatre audiences are getting to know Akhtar’s work. Last year, the Arts Club presented its run of Disgraced, the 2011 play that earned the playwright a Pulitzer. The Pi Theatre production marks the Canadian premiere of The Invisible Hand, something Wolfe says he and the rest of the company “are pretty tickled about.
“Toronto is a cultural centre. But we do occasionally enjoy claiming that Vancouver gets to see certain things first.”
He began considering the play for Vancouver two years ago, and at the time wondered if it would retain its topicality.
“I wasn’t sure what the situation would be in terms of global terrorism by the time it actually opened. As it turns out, unfortunately, it hasn’t improved. It might have got worse.”
Wolfe hopes The Invisible Hand will “help frame and lead a discussion around global finance and insurgencies.”
But, he notes, the play’s trio of kidnappers aren’t motivated by religious fanaticism.
“They’re not the ISIS type,” he said.
“What they’re trying to do is come up with resources to help fix the roads and run the schools and hospitals in a corrupt Pakistan. Their idea is to bring a kind of Pakistani spring to Pakistan. At the same time, the lead character does come from England, he’s a disaffected Pakistani Londoner. So a lot of what’s in the play is certainly in the news.”