Modern Terrorism
“It’s kind of nice to laugh at what we fear the most,” commented a woman during a post-show discussion with Modern Terrorism ’s writer, Jon Kern, and director, Peter DuBois. Engaging us from the start, Modern Terrorism brings us inside a New York apartment in which Qala (William Jackson Harper) is planning an attack on the city, to be carried out by the youthful Rahim (Utkarsh Ambudkar). Yalda (Nitya Vidyasagar) is on hand for logistical help and stoner neighbor Jerome (Steven Boyer), or 3A, as Qala and Yalda call him, finds himself becoming a willing participant in Qala’s plot. With the full title Modern Terrorism, or They Who Want to Kill Us and How We Learn to Love Them , Kern’s play turns the typical depiction of terrorists on its head (the terrorists are really quite charming) and begs the question, can we sympathize with someone whose methods of effecting change are abhorrent? For example, one night Rahim and Yalda are discussing how they got into the business, as it ...