JTA — An Off-Broadway show about an undocumented Syrian immigrant will open without the Jewish actor who was slated to play the role.
“The Visitor,” starring Tony Award-winning actor Ariel Stachel, was set to open Off-Broadway at New York’s Public Theater in April 2020 and is now only in preview following the COVID-19 shutdown.
Stachel had previously expressed misunderstandings about his casting in the musical, in which he plays an unspecified Syrian character who is sent to a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center. Earlier this year, he told Playbill, he asked the production team why his character — who grew up in America — would speak with an accent.
The start date of “The Visitor” was delayed to this fall, with the theater citing “conversations and commitments around equity and racism”.
Requests for comment from Stachel’s representatives were not immediately returned.
“Public Theater and Ariel Stachel have made a mutual decision that she will step down from Visitor and her role in the production,” the theater said in a statement posted on its social media channels on October 20. “We are grateful for her artistry and involvement over the past six years. We wish Ari the best of luck in her future endeavours.”
“The Visitor” previews began on October 16, but in the show’s early preview performances, which was attended by JTA, Stachel’s role was filled with an understudy.
The stage musical is adapted from the 2007 Oscar-nominated film of the same name. It tells the story of Walter, a white college professor who travels to New York City to find Tarek and Zainab, a young, undocumented couple living in his apartment. After Tarek, who is Syrian, is arrested over a misunderstanding and later sent to an ICE detention center, Walter becomes entangled in their lives and tries to help him stay in America.
According to Playbill, “Recent discussions have included concern over a story centered on a middle-aged white man as a protagonist about predominantly immigrant experiences as well as reassurances that the cast have access to the resources to participate fully in telling these stories.”
The COVID-19 shutdown of New York theaters coincided with protests against police killings of African-Americans, forcing many theater and arts companies to confront issues of representation and inclusivity.
Stachel has been with the show since the initial workshops, and his frustration over his character’s accent has been one of the show’s more controversial issues.
“I got to the point where I couldn’t separate my experiences in the world from what I was doing on stage. It’s not enough to just play a role and have fun, it’s really important to me political, spiritual, The need to exist and align artistically,” Stachel told Playbill in April. “I thought to myself, ‘My gray body shouldn’t be seen as another anymore,’ so I really took this opportunity. I’m trying to convert.”
Stachel previously won a Tony for his role as Egyptian musician Halede in the smash-hit stage adaptation of the 2007 Israeli film “The Bands Visit”. Stachel’s father was born in “an immigrant absorption tent city” to Yemeni Jews and his mother is an Ashkenazi from New York.
“In third grade, someone told me I was too black to be Jewish,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2017. By high school, Stachel said, “I started avoiding being seen in public with my father. I don’t want to be seen with someone who looks like an Arab.” “The Band’s Visit,” about an Egyptian band trapped in the Israeli backwaters, helped them reconnect with their Middle Eastern and Arab identity.
When auditioning for Halde, Stachel explained to Playbill, he “felt it was really our only shot and, at the time, it was exciting to land the job on Broadway. By the time I got to ‘The Visitor,'” In fact, I started having trouble with the accentuation in all the roles I was playing.”
