Ali and Ali: The Deportation Hearings
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About this ebook
In this sequel to the hilarious and hard-hitting The Adventures of Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil, the agitprop collaborative team of Camyar Chai, Guillermo Verdecchia, and Marcus Youssef turns its idiosyncratic brand of political satire to new global realities.
Following the election of U.S. president Barack Obama in 2008, collective optimism for a more tolerant, peaceful, and co-operative post-Bush world spreads to Canada – and to the backroom of Salim’s Falafel Shoppe in Toronto. There, Ali Hakim and Ali Ababwa, refugee entertainers from the fictitious, war-torn country of Agraba, are inspired to write a stage play in celebration of the new president’s message of “hope and change.” The premiere of their Yo Mama, Osbama! (or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Half-Black President) halts abruptly when an RCMP constable arrives at the theatre and arrests the pair for its financial ties to the Agrabanian People’s Front, an alleged “terrorist organization” on the Canadian government’s watch list.
Continuity becomes more apparent than change when Ali and Ali are swiftly put on trial. As the hapless playwrights try to defend themselves in the farcical deportation hearing that unfolds, racial and cultural stereotypes are invoked – and lampooned – as quickly as dubious evidence is presented. But, in the midst of the biting comedy, more serious questions are raised about the cost for some when we endeavour to protect the “freedoms” of others.
Cast of 1 woman and 3 men.
Camyar Chai
Camyar Chai has worked in theatre and film for over twenty years. He is the founder of Vancouver’s acclaimed Neworld Theatre. He has worked as a freelance actor, director, and writer, and has also engaged in arts education. In addition to writing plays, Camyar has also written librettos for opera. An award winning theatre maker, he received his Master of Fine Arts in Directing from the University of British Columbia. Talon has published his Ali and Ali: The Deportation Hearings and Adventures of Ali and Ali and the aXes of Evil, both of which he co-wrote with Guillermo Verdecchia and Marcus Youssef.
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Book preview
Ali and Ali - Camyar Chai
Production History
The outstanding success of The Adventures of Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil in 2004 inspired this second Ali & Ali misadventure. Ali & Ali: The Deportation Hearings was produced under the title Ali & Ali 7: Hey Brother, Can You Spare Some Hope and Change? by Neworld Theatre and presented in association with Cahoots Theatre Company at The Cultch (Vancouver East Cultural Centre) from April 14 to 24, 2010, with the following cast and crew:
Ali Ababwa – Marcus Youssef
Ali Hakim – Camyar Chai
Hong Kong – Lee Raugi Yu
Sukhvinder Dhaliwal – Laara Sadiq
Directed by Guillermo Verdecchia
Designed by Rob Lewis and Jonathon Ryder
It was subsequently rewritten and retitled and then presented at Factory Theatre in Toronto, October 7 to 17, 2010, with the following cast and crew:
Ali Ababwa – Marcus Youssef
Ali Hakim – Guillermo Verdecchia
Hong Kong – Paul Sun Hyung Lee
Sukhvinder Dhaliwal – Anita Majumder
Directed by Guillermo Verdecchia with Soheil Parsa and Jivesh Parasram
Designed by Rob Lewis and Jonathon Ryder
Characters
ALI ABABWA
stateless refugee from Agraba; a Copt
ALI HAKIM
stateless refugee from Agraba; a Sammi
HONG KONG
Ali & Ali’s actor
SUKI (Sukhvinder Dhaliwal)
RCMP constable
TOM BUTLER (pre-recorded cameo appearance)
He was the manager in Josie and the Pussycats and the mayor in The Killing. YouTube him.
Ali & Ali
The Deportation Hearings
VOICE-OVER
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the rumours are true. Those ambulant Agrabanians, Ali and Ali, are back with a new show! Straight from Salim’s Falafel Shoppe, they’re here, they’re live, and this time, they’ve hired a MONGOLIAN! Yes, the Emirs of Entertainment, the Wallahs of Whacky are proud to present Yo Mama, Osbama (or How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Half-Black President).
PROJECTION (text)
Act 1, Scene 1
VOICE-OVER
Co-developed for six years through three workshops and eight readings, in collaboration with Immigrant Experience Theatre Company and Fresh Off the Boat Performance Collective. Presented with the generous support of Puppets Not Pain, Ali and Ali is proud to present Scene 1 of Yo Mama, Osbama: "The Night Everything Changed."
PROJECTION (text)
November 4, 2008.
The Night Everything Changed
HONG KONG plays JASWINDER, the daughter. BINDI, the wife, is a bunraku¹ puppet, manipulated by ALI ABABWA. JASWINDER watches TV. It’s U.S. election night. The sound of a CNN broadcast, then a creaky door opening, wind blowing, and the door closing.
Enter ALI HAKIM as MOHANDES, brushing snow off his shoulders and clutching a Tim Hortons cup.
MOHANDES
Bad news, nah. I have been laid off my occupation at chicken processor plant.
BINDI
Oh, Mohandes. What will we do?
MOHANDES
Make me some vindaloo.
BINDI
We have no money for ingredients.
MOHANDES
Oh, Lakshmi, why is the global economy melting down? I have Ph.D. in nuclear physics but here am I, a pauper in a cold country.
JASWINDER
Dad. Come and watch this.
MOHANDES
What is it, Jasmine?
JASWINDER
Barack Hussein Osbama.
MOHANDES
Oh yes, the black fellow. (makes monkey noises)
JASWINDER
Don’t do that, Dad. I think he’s going to become president of the United States.
MOHANDES
Oh sure. And I am going to become president of the Canadian Atomic Energy Institute-nah.
BINDI
I believe you will, Mohandes. One day.
MOHANDES
I apologize, my daughter, to make such a racist comment. It is because of the pain I am feeling. Bindi, my wife, I am sorry to be such a failure. You deserve better. You should have married Nehru Netanyahu, the carpet king of Bangalore.
BINDI
I married you, Mohandes, and you are not a failure. As my grandmother used to say, Life is like a box of gulab jamun. You never know when –
JASWINDER
The results from Florida are coming in!
They gather around the TV. They are transfixed by the miracle unfolding.
MOHANDES, BINDI & JASWINDER
By the blue epidermis of Krishna …
JASWINDER
It’s really happening. This is history. This is a whole new era of hope and change.
MOHANDES
I’m not convinced. Is it legal for a black man to be president?
JASWINDER
Don’t you see? Everything’s different now.
The phone rings.
MOHANDES
If that’s