AJAX

By Habib Yazdi’s
Directed by: Kareem Fahmy
Produced by Amphibian Theatre

Audience Rating: PG13

Running Time: 95 minutes with no intermission

Accessible Seating: Available

Hearing Devices: Unavailable

Sensory Friendly Showing: Unavailable

Sound Level: Comfortable Volume

Audio/Visuals to Prepare For: guns, bombs, and missiles

Reviewed by Tim Bass

I am a bit embarrassed to admit that I entered Amphibian Stage’s production of AJAX knowing very little about the 1953 CIA-backed coup in Iran. I left fascinated, unsettled, and curious to learn more. That speaks to the strength of Habib Yazdi’s outstanding script. AJAX takes a complex historical event, one with repercussions that continue to shape global politics, and creates from it a theatrical experience that is intelligent, darkly funny, visually arresting, and surprisingly accessible. It is a history lesson disguised as a political thriller, wrapped inside a thoroughly compelling theatrical metaphor.

The play brings the audience into a Tehran courtyard in 1953, where American interests, Iranian sovereignty, personal ambition, and the politics of oil confront one another with increasing tension. Yazdi does not attempt to recreate the coup as a dry sequence of dates, meetings, and political decisions. Instead, he creates a theatrical world in which tennis becomes international negotiation, politeness becomes a weapon, and a swimming pool becomes Iran itself.

The decision to personify the Pool is the play’s most compelling theatrical device. What could easily have felt gimmicky instead becomes a remarkably flexible and progressively more heartbreaking metaphor. Even as I grappled with all that it represented, I found it completely fascinating. The Pool is property, resource, homeland, identity, and living witness. People surround it, admire it, negotiate over it, and make decisions about its future, frequently without pausing to consider whether it has a will or voice of its own. In many ways, it is the emotional and political center of the production.

That metaphor succeeds in large part because of the outstanding physical production. Leah Mazur’s scenic design is striking, creating an environment that feels both inviting and faintly dangerous. The pool anchors the playing space, but the set remains open enough to support the play’s shifting alliances, private negotiations, and sudden eruptions of theatricality. It is beautiful to look at, but its beauty is never merely decorative. Every part of the environment contributes to the story being told.

The rest of the technical team builds admirably upon that foundation. Omar Madkour’s lighting design and David Lanza’s sound design add tension and atmosphere without overwhelming the actors or the language, while Sarah Mosher’s costume design helps define the social, cultural, and political positions each character occupies. Together, the designers create a world that is polished, cohesive, and filled with meaning. Nothing feels accidental.

The acting is excellent across the board. Shayan Hooshmand, Carson Wright, David Mattar Merten, Randy Pearlman, and Jovane Caamaño form an impressive ensemble, each bringing a distinct energy to Yazdi’s strange and dangerous political game. The performances balance the script’s competing demands with confidence. The actors must be funny without reducing the historical events to a joke, politically symbolic without losing their humanity, and occasionally heightened or surreal without disconnecting from the emotional truth of the story. Across the board, the company meets that challenge.

Shayan Hooshmand is especially affecting as Kambiz, the hardworking pool boy and gardener whose relationship with the Pool gives the play much of its emotional weight. The role requires an actor of deft skill, and Hooshmand grounds the production beautifully.

The American characters enter the story with the confidence of people who believe they understand both the game and their right to determine its outcome. Their civility makes them no less dangerous. In fact, the production is often at its sharpest when diplomacy and manipulation become indistinguishable. A friendly exchange can carry the force of a threat, and a seemingly harmless tennis match can reveal an entire philosophy of foreign intervention. The actors play these contradictions superbly, trusting the audience to recognize the violence beneath the charm.

Jovane Caamaño’s work as the Pool is essential to the success of the production. Playing a metaphor is no small assignment, particularly when that metaphor must also function as a living character. Caamaño brings personality, vulnerability, humor, and dignity to the role. The Pool can be playful and inviting one moment, wounded and deeply moving the next. Rather than simply representing Iran from a distance, the performance makes the metaphor feel immediate and personal. The Pool does not exist merely to be used by the other characters. It observes them, responds to them, and gradually forces us to reckon with what their actions mean. For an actor, this requires bringing to bear all of your tools when your voice is limited. I often found myself watching Caamaño as the story unfolded, and his commitment and unflinching engagement were just excellent.

Director Kareem Fahmy deserves considerable credit for holding all these elements together. Yazdi’s script moves among historical drama, spy thriller, dark comedy, political satire, and creative allegory. In less assured hands, those shifts could create tonal confusion. Fahmy, instead, makes them feel like different currents flowing through the same body of water. The humor invites us into the story, the theatricality keeps us engaged, and the darker implications surface gradually until the consequences become impossible to ignore.

Fahmy’s direction is also direct and clear. Even audience members unfamiliar with the history, which included me, can follow the central conflict without feeling trapped inside a lecture. He allows the playwright’s ideas to emerge through relationships, behavior, movement, and image. The staging gives the actors freedom while preserving the precision the story requires.

The historical subject matter is fascinating. AJAX centers on the 1953 coup that removed Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and strengthened the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. However, the play is less interested in presenting a comprehensive documentary account than in examining the attitudes and mechanisms that make intervention possible. Power rarely announces itself as villainy. It presents itself as partnership, protection, modernization, or help. AJAX repeatedly exposes the distance between those reassuring words and the damage they can conceal. I found myself reflecting on America’s role throughout history and today on the world stage with appropriate unease.

That is part of what makes Yazdi’s script feel so relevant. The play is rooted in a specific historical event, but its questions extend far beyond 1953. Who gets to decide what is best for a nation? Who controls its resources? When powerful people describe their actions as necessary, who bears the consequences? Yazdi confidently addresses these questions. The script is often genuinely funny, but the comedy never erases the stakes. Instead, laughter becomes another tool for revealing the absurdity of power.

Amphibian Stage’s AJAX is a superb example of what theatre can accomplish. It entertains, educates, unsettles, and invites further curiosity, all within a production that is visually stunning and exceptionally well performed. Habib Yazdi has written a smart, imaginative, and deeply theatrical examination of a historical event more Americans should understand. This gifted company brings that script to life with clarity, energy, humor, and tremendous artistic control.

With outstanding performances, inspired direction, a fascinating script, and one of the most compelling uses of scenic metaphor I have seen in a long time, AJAX is a production well worth experiencing. I arrived knowing little about the history behind the story. I left wanting to know much more, and deeply impressed by the artistry that awakened that curiosity.

To the Explorers of the Soul,

Tim Bass

Photos by Evan Michael Woods