Yasmina's Necklace

The sell-out 2016 play makes another Chicago engagemen

First premiering last year at Chicago's 16th Street Theater, Rohina Malik's sweet-natured drama about relationships and racial identity transfers to The Goodman as part of their 2017/18 season. We follow the confllicted journey of Abdul Samee, who changed his name to Sam to integrate with his American peers. Hiding that he has an Iraqi father and Puerto Rican mother, if anybody asks him about his heritage, he firmly answers that he is Italian-American. He even goes as far to marry an American woman to disguise his mixed roots. However his life is turned upside down when a stranger arrives from Iraq, and his attraction to her forces him to examine his reasons for hiding who he is.

Love in a cold climate

Yasmina is an enigmatic young woman from Sam's homeland, who has her own burdens to bear; having closed her heart to love following her traumatic escape to the United States. As Sam is divorced now, he agrees to find a new bride through his father's cultural center's introduction service. There the two meet and attraction and friendship blossom quickly. However when his parents discover that Yasmina and her family are refugees, cultural snobbery rears its ugly head, and the two must decide if their connection can survive the horrors of Yasmina's past, and if Sam can come to accept his Iraqi heritage.