‘The Return' asks whether an Israeli and a Palestinian can rewrite their script

San Francisco Chronicle​

18 hours ago

He's learned to bear his life; she means trouble. He knows the Orwellian rules of their police state, including that there are probably new dicta he doesn't yet know about; she's been gone long enough to be horrified on his behalf.
When this unnamed duo meet in an auto body shop in Israel, there's a template they're expected to follow. He, the Arab mechanic, must be accommodating and subservient, even if she, the Jewish customer, takes conversational liberties. He can't risk otherwise; she could report him or even be an official herself.
But in 'The Return,' which opened Sunday, Aug. 10, at the Garret at ACT's Toni Rembe Theater, she (Elissa Beth Stebbins) goes way too far immediately. She marvels at the fact he (Nick Musleh) is allowed to work on army jeeps, given his background, and asks if he gets treated and paid the same as his Jewish coworkers. It's like she wants to break him, but not for the usual reasons. Stebbins plays her as someone who knows she has all the power but hates that fact, and has to learn she can't do anything about it.
In the two-hander, mounted by Golden Thread Productions in partnership with Art2Action, Inc., the surface-level mysteries are whether these two apparent strangers already know each other and what agenda could spur her to keep asking him questions that hint at a criminal history and make them both so uncomfortable.
But the deeper question of Hanna Eady and Edward Mast's play is whether the pair can deviate from the rulebook history has handed them. No impetuous escape from it all or sunshine-and-rainbows cross-cultural reconciliation is possible. The forces against them are too great.
But can one small human gesture break through? And if so, dare they — and we — hope for a better world?
As she keeps flinging herself against his weathered defenses, Eady (who also directs) hits a few false notes. Restrained naturalism, where both actors thrive, keeps ratcheting into hysterical pitches. A scream of frustration bleeds into a sad string instrument sound cue, cutting off a scene. It's like the theater equivalent of an author triple-underlining his text instead of finding the right words.
Still, at least most of the time, the first-rate performers make their credulity-straining premise (which I won't spoil here) and occasional clichés downright plausible.
Stebbins, among the region's most incisive parsers of subtext, finds secret doors to the unknown within her lines. Her eyes are agonized then haunted, melting then teasing. At one point, when she says goodbye, you can tell that what her character really wants to say is, 'But why does it have to be over?'
Musleh is a study in understatement. His character's open yet subdued mien communicates a lifetime spent appeasing an abusive authority, and he always juggles just enough possibilities to keep the show's mystery aloft. For the longest time, you can't entirely tell whether his character really believes the self-negating propaganda he's spouting, per Israeli brainwashing, or he's just that adroit in doublespeak. But then, when he finally allows himself something real and human, Musleh's whole being seems to shine.
Connection is doomed in the world of 'The Return.' It can't last. Yet these two still manage one defiant Hollywood-perfect final gesture. It didn't have to end that way. A clumsy attempt at goodness has probably ruined at least one life, so recrimination — or worse — would be understandable.
But people still reach out for each other. That, Eady and Mast insist, has to mean something.