Chewing gum typically evokes instances of childhood glee and pop-a-bubble-all-over-your-face silliness, but don’t expect to be chewing frivolously while watching “Gum.” In Karen Hartman’s play, directed by Chay Yew, gum symbolizes women’s sexual awakening in a restrictive country that shuns and punishes any female sensuality. Inspired by an Egyptian town where authorities blamed deviant behavior — young men and women found copulating in cars — on contaminated gum, “Gum” explores both the ridiculousness of a restriction on candy, and the dark, violent penalties carried out in a country with harsh limits on female sexuality.
The play focuses on two sisters — resilient, prudent but damaged Lina (Hilary Ward), and fiery, free-spirited but fragile Rahmi (Liz Elkins) — who are struggling to adhere to their culture’s chaste values in the face of of their growing desires. Younger Lina masks a painful secret and optimistically looks to America for a way out. Meanwhile, Rahmi fantasizes about her previous sexual encounter with some boys in a car while she passes herself off as an inexperienced bride-to-be for businessman Inayat (Peter Wylie).
Both find pleasure, and a means of liberating their frustration, by munching on the outlawed gum. Now, let’s face it, the image of veiled women secreting sticks of gum and becoming aroused through the act of chewing is so atypical that it is pretty funny. But, Lina and Rahmi inhabit a repressive world where corporeal pleasures have consequences.
The story is staged in a major city of an imaginary Islamic country — based in part on Cairo — where women must conceal their appearances and emotions. The set fittingly symbolizes the sisters’ subjugation. Their home resembles a gated courtyard: at once completely open to the public like the women’s personal lives, but also guarded like their suppressed sexual urges. Even their caretaker Auntie (Liz Jenkins, appropriately loving, practical and strict) constantly walks like a warden to check on the girls. To the Western mode of thinking, control over female sexuality, often through the practice of female genital mutilation, is paradoxical in the civilized and educated world they inhabit. Intriguingly, “Gum” reflects on the reasons given for these chilling practices.
At its heart, the production is an engulfing character study. Ward and Elkins manage their roles skillfully. Rahmi’s character is like a stimulated gazelle that has been caged, and Elkins beautifully makes Rahmi’s unruly passion and her physical delicateness genuine. She startlingly depicts the final crude violation of Rahmi’s body. Lina could be just the naive good younger sister, but Ward movingly unveils the character’s inherent adult wisdom, her sorrow and her secret tenderness. She also astutely juggles Lina’s impulsive desire and compassion with the character’s dogmatic compliance with customs. Also, despite Inayat’s severe attempt to tame Rahmi, Wylie refrains from playing a heartless tyrant by uncovering Inayat’s empathy, and by convincingly rationalizing the character’s ruthless views.
“Gum” is not a radically stirring show, but it offers an in-depth look at another culture that is at various stages amusing, devastating, unsettling and, at the very least, thought-provoking.
“Gum” runs at Mandell Weiss Forum Studio on Feb. 9 and Feb. 10 at 8 p.m., and Feb. 11 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Tickets range from $10 to $15, and can be purchased at the Forum box office or by calling (858) 534-4574.
