Sunday, June 19, 2022, 6:00pm Kabuki
I’ll wager that I’m the only person in the audience who thought of a mobile phone company when one of the characters started yelling, “Nedjma!” (Nedjma was the first mobile phone network in Algeria, where the main character’s family came from, but I’m sure she wasn’t named for a cellphone, besides which Nedjma was rebranded as Ooredoo in 2013.)
Nedjma is a teenage Algerian-French girl, living in an apartment block in Paris with lots of other immigrant families. The girls have formed squads, which is to say gangs, defending their turf and their honor against the smallest perceived slight. A new girl, Zina, moves into the building, but of course her cousin is in the rival squad. What do you do when “the wrong side of the tracks” is just down the hall? Nedjma and Zina are drawn to one another, but their squads are determined to keep them apart. How will Nedjma and Zina balance the irreconcilable tensions between love and loyalty?
The acting performances are excellent, with a unique cultural flavor added to a story as old as time. The tension between the factions is palpable, sometimes uncomfortably so. Highly recommended.
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