By Lucy Komisar
This slow-moving political thriller sets a State Department official in Senegal (or does she work for another agency?) against a young Peace Corps volunteer who “reallocated” U.S. government bags of concrete to help build a community garden instead of fortifying his house against deep state expected Muslim terrorist attacks. (They haven’t happened.) She will send him home unless he cooperates on a plan to catch a purported terrorist. It builds slowly and gets exciting only in the last third of the 80-minute show.
The story, written by Rajiv Joseph and directed by May Adrales, at first seems rather pedestrian, except everything is not as it seems. Did Boubs (short for Boubacar) (Abubakar Ali) overturn a truck loaded with U.S. government concrete because a cat ran in his path or because he was drinking Pastis? And why does lying about it matter?
Ali is terrific as the a naïve 25-year-old, a charmer, his voice and expression covering up some smarts.
Mia Barron as Dina is cool and bureaucratic as the regional head of security to whom he is summoned after the accident.
Until the matter of Muslims is raised. Was the Pastis, as he said, a gift to the chief of the town, a Christian? Then why did Boubs give her a silver ring he said was made by the village marabout with a cube that has a tiny piece of paper with a blessing from the Koran?
(I was a bit suspicious about his name, Boubacar, and his complexion. Not mentioned in the play, the author’s note says he is half Indian, half white. But nothing in the script refers to that or makes it matter other than the unspoken suggestion that whites attitudes toward Muslims are different than that of other ethnic groups.)
Why should Dina care about who inhabits the village? Why does she press on connecting with him?
Turns out she just missed being killed at the Islamic 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salam, Tanzania, that took the lives of her lover and two best friends. Dina, who is 46 and divorced, was home nursing a hangover. She wants vengeance.
She decides to help him finesse the cement problem by creating fake documents that require the signatures and fingerprints of people in the town. He does it, misses one signature and she winks that he can forge it. Is this going somewhere or a red herring?
So far nothing by writer Joseph or director Adrales gets you to the edge of your seat.
Dina is seductive, invites him to her hotel for New Year’s Eve. He is truly naïve to believe she wants romance. It is December 31, 1999, on the cusp of Y2K, when the century changed. Not clear why that matters. She needs his help. Is she being honest or setting him up? Trying to find out how far he will go in deception? Now the thriller turns on all channels.
Dina has discovered that the man believed to be leader of the Tanzania bombing is at the hotel. With her power to send Boubs home, she commands him to dress as a bellhop and take the man’s fingerprints when he is asleep (drugged?) to see if he’s the one. She is good at lying, too. She neglects to tell him something crucial that will entangle him in her plot.
Clever. I liked the denouement, though it took a bit long to get there. Is this how America’s secret intel operatives are recruited? Maybe it’s a “sleeper” play in both senses of the word.
“Dakar 2000.” Written by Rajiv Joseph and directed by May Adrales, Manhattan Theatre Club, Center Stage I, 131 West 55 St, NYC. (212) 581-1212. 80 min. Opened Feb 27, 2025, closes March 23, 2025.