DRONE
By Andrea Assaf
Arab American National Museum at Detroit Public Theatre
Detroit
Through Aug. 3
Every time I come to the Detroit Public Theatre, the space is completely transformed. I’ve stepped into the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil War, but this is the first time I felt like I was at the opera with a live music ensemble, a dance performance, multimedia projections, and Elvis impersonations.
Yes, DRONE, presented by the Arab American National Museum at DPT, includes all of those things. Written by Joyce Award-winning playwright Andrea Assaf, DRONE reminds us how absurd it is to pretend everything is normal, when bombs are being dropped on innocent people. It opened at DPT on July 31 with a limited run through Aug 3.
DRONE follows the descent into madness of an American pilot who moves to Las Vegas to work as a military drone operator. He becomes tormented by the voices of survivors whose family members have been killed by drone strikes and must come to terms with the fact that this is not “just like a video game.” These are real people who are dying. Some of the lines in the play are based on real testimonies of military drone strike survivors and witnesses. It is especially poignant as we are witnessing an ongoing ethnic cleansing in Palestine.
We see his wife turn to the church to find solace in a congregation with an Elvis-esque preacher, a group of protestors worshipping the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet, and all the gambling, sex, and drugs of Las Vegas. It sounds like a lot, and it is.
The weight of witnessing such horrific acts crushing the pilot’s sense of sanity reflects what is happening to our souls in this very moment. As our tax dollars continue to fund the war machine in Israel, we continue working like nothing is happening. We watch videos of starving children and bodies being pulled from rubble before we eat dinner and sleep soundly in warm beds. Over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since October 2023 (though the conflict started long before that), and yet Americans can still go to the theatre and swim in the ocean — things Palestinians cannot. It is an absurd existence, and the collective spirit of humanity is wailing in grief over our desensitization.
Assaf completed the script for DRONE during a digital artist residency through AANM in 2020. She came to the museum for a second residency in 2022 to complete the music score with collaborating artists, and presented a work-in-progress version of DRONE that included the stories of the survivor characters. This is the first time the full play is being staged.
The highlight of DRONE is the music ensemble with vocals by internationally acclaimed Syrian opera singer Lubana Al Quntar. Her voice is phenomenal and haunting. She is accompanied by Zafer Tawil on the oud and flute, percussion by Roger Kashou, violin by Eylem Basaldi, and additional vocals by Kathy Randels, Farah Afra, Zeyy Fawaz and Gabi Vigueira. This group were the true stars of the show, adding depth to the performance with background music, and sometimes full-blown music interludes in between scenes. The eerie voices and incessant droning they sang, buzzing in the pilot's head, created an immersive experience threatening to drown us all in his internal chaos.
That is not to say that the actors didn’t also shine. Will Keenan took us on a harrowing ride from supportive husband to tormented madman. Ashley Wilkerson gave us both a devout Christian woman and the booming voice of Sekhmet. And Zeyy Fawaz, Iman Saleh, and Efe Osagie made a trio of survivors whose heartbreaking stories begged us to find our humanity.
However, this play could have used some editing. At times it felt all over the place, and the message would have been more powerful had the show been more concise. The run time is about two hours, plus an intermission, with some scenes that did nothing to move the story forward — like the Elvis impersonator trio performance and the wife consoling her son about being the new kid at school.
Even as a Pagan woman who loves to see the goddesses of the old religions worshipped, I was confused by the role of Sekhmet. Sekhmet is the goddess of both war and healing who appears in the desert sun with the body of a woman and the head of a lion.
Nejla Yatkin provided a stunning performance as Sekhmet, embodying both her ferocity and elegance as she danced like fire blazing over the horizon. She was hypnotizing to watch, but it felt like performance art for the sake of performance art, instead of tying directly into the story.
In the end, karma always has her way, and the human spirit can only bear so much death and destruction before it breaks.
May we never forget that we are witnessing active colonization and ethnic cleansing in Palestine, Sudan, the Congo, and all over the world, as we watch from the safety of our phones.
Performances of DRONE will take place at Detroit Public Theatre at 3960 3rd Ave, Detroit on Aug 1-2 at 7 p.m. and Aug 3 at 2 p.m. Tickets are available via the AANM’s website.
This story was published in conjunction with Detroit Metro Times.
