Theater: “Dakar 2000” at MTC
Imagine it’s late 1999, with the uproar over Y2K accelerating. There’s no Internet, you’re in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language, and a government official is about to deport you.
That’s the predicament for Boobs (Abubakr Ali), the protagonist of “Dakar 2000,” Rajif Joseph’s clever two-hander. Boobs (spelled B-O-U-B-S, we learn later) opens the play with a soliloquy about his 25 years as a “glorified delivery boy, passing along envelopes and jump drives.” But mostly he flashes back to his 2 years as a twenty-something Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal, “trying to make a difference in the world,” as he puts it.
Unfortunately, this cheerful innocent ran into a brick wall back in 1999: in the form of Dina (Mia Barron), a stern forty-something official at the US Embassy in Dakar. He’s just had a car accident and was probably driving drunk on pastis. But she’s bawling him out for misappropriating fencing and cement for a little project in his village. The punishment he faces? Deportation back to the US.
Flashing his goofy smile, and looking particularly vulnerable in his head bandage, Boobs turns on the charm offensive and convinces Dina to let him stay. They get drunk one night and begin telling each other war stories, some of which are true and some of which are outright lies. “You’re a good liar!” Dina tells Boubs at one point. “I don’t begrudge that skill set.”
A romance seems to be building, but Dina has ulterior motives: she wants him to help her carry out a mission that may be illegal. Will accepting the assignment be Boobs’ way of making a difference in the world? “It’s a powerful temptation to be told ‘you are useful,’” he says at one point. “It’s a powerful temptation to be told ‘we need you.”
The play then goes off on a tangent, touching on the international panic surrounding Y2k. Is it the apocalypse after all? What, Boobs wonders further, if everything science has been telling us—Y2K, the solar system, the universe—is one big lie? Hmm.
Heavy stuff, but thankfully “Dakar 2000” never loses its intelligence or sense of humor. If you like your spy dramas funny, offbeat and a wee bit sexy, don’t miss this one. Cloak-and-dagger-and-fun. Now at MTC @ City Center.
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