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Sons
Of The Prophet
Hampstead
Theatre Winter 2022-2023
Watching Stephen Karam’s 2011 play Sons of the Prophet, set in rural Pennsylvania, you might feel you have tuned into a peculiar mid-season episode of a minor situation comedy about a collection of troubled characters with physical and psychological issues.
The central character Joseph (Irfan Shamji) has neuropathy, muscle weakness and inflamed knees for which he wears knee braces,. Health care in America being dependent on employee health insurance, he is doing a stint as the assistant publisher to Gloria (Juliet Cowan), who is in trauma from a hysterectomy and her husband’s suicide.
She is keen to have Joseph as an assistant in exchange for his family’s story of their very distant connection to the poet Khalil Gibran.
Joseph is also grieving for his father, who recently died of a heart attack a week after his car crashed while trying to avoid a deer decoy placed in the middle of a road by the school student Vin (Raphael Akuwudike).
Since Vin is in a football team the judge at his trial decided to postpone a sentence of juvenile detention until after the football season has ended, citing 'the positive effects of participating in football.'
Feeling very bad about what he caused, Vin arranges to meet up with the family, which includes Joseph’s younger brother Charles (Eric Sirakian),who has had his cartilage used to replace a missing ear, and his uncle Bill (Raad Rawi), who is so infirm he has had to move in with his nephews who support him by installing a toilet with a curtain in the living room.
Despite every scene including some reference to death, illness or mental distress, the show lightens the mood with humour.
But neither the long list of medical conditions nor the humour head anywhere special. They don’t illuminate character, which remains sketchily drawn, nor do they explore issues or any kind of journey.
Instead, for over a hundred minutes you wait for some story to draw you in or a spark to give the show some dramatic tension.
Good performances from the cast, along with comic situations and fast dialogue, give the show a decent pace but it's not enough to make a great night out.
Keith
McKenna
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Review - Sons Of The Prophet - Hampstead Theatre 2022