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    Ali and Ali: The Deportation Hearings
    Ali and Ali: The Deportation Hearings
    Ali and Ali: The Deportation Hearings
    Ebook100 pages49 minutes

    Ali and Ali: The Deportation Hearings

    By Camyar Chai, Guillermo Verdecchia and Marcus Youssef

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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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTalonbooks
    Release dateOct 15, 2013
    ISBN9780889227835
    Ali and Ali: The Deportation Hearings
    Author

    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

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