The Black Eyed

photo: Joan Marcus

***
NYTW

I generally agree with Patrick's ("stunningly lyrical") and Aaron's ("finely crafted") Showdown reviews for The Black Eyed. To my recollection, I have never even seen a play solely about Palestinians, female or otherwise, and that reason alone makes this production pretty darn unique. Four Palestinian women, each with their own story loaded with struggle, pain and strife, gather in the afterlife searching for answers (it sort of reminded me of the harrowing 9 Parts Of Desire, the one woman play about Iraqi women from a couple of years ago (jeez can't those poor middle eastern women catch a break??)). My one quib, which is admittedly a shallow one, is that shortly into the play it became obvious that each woman was going to have her 2o minute platform to tell her story and the predictability of this structure was noticeably taxing on a few of the matinee subscribers as well as my ADHD self.