About the Play:

The Adventures of Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil is a play by Marcus Youssef with Guillermo Verdecchia and Camyar Chai. In this elaborate agitprop theatrical collaboration, the internal contradictions and duplicitous double-speak of the "war on terror" are exposed as the propaganda vehicles for the neo-colonialism of the West that they are.

The Adventures of Ali and Ali and the Axis of Evil is a sharp satire about the insanity of world politics. "Ali Hakim" and "Ali Ababwa," refugees from the imaginary country "Agraba," attempt to seduce their audience into providing them with food, refuge, security, freedom and the material benefits of Western consumer society, failing miserably at every step. A hard-hitting presentation of a play-within-a-play assaults the audience as Marcus Youssef, Guillermo Verdecchia and Camyar Chai do Shakespeare, Shaw and Swift one better with an endless string of buffooneries and absurdities derived from an inversion of the clichés defining the geo-politics of the Middle East at the beginning of the 21st century. Informed by the research of Paul Krugman and Noam Chomsky, sent up by the post-modern cultural relativism of "Jean Paul Jacques Beauderrièredada," this political satire is not for the faint of heart.

The Adventures of Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil premiered in 2004 at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre (The Cultch).

Cast: 4 male

What people say:

"The Adventures of Ali & Ali… is solid and polished… shockingly poignant, seriously funny, humbly powerful, intelligently goofy…." — Seattle Post-Intelligencer

About the Playwrights:

Guillermo Verdecchia is a Canadian writer of drama, fiction, and film, as well as a director and actor. He is the recipient of a Governor-General's Award for Drama for his play Fronteras Americanas and a four-time winner of the Chalmers Canadian Play Award. His work has translated into Spanish and Italian, produced in Europe, Australia, and the US, and is studied in Latin America, Europe, and North America. As a director and actor he has worked at theatres across Canada, from the Stratford Festival to the Vancouver East Cultural Centre.

Marcus Youssef is a Canadian playwright, artistic director, and author. Born in Montreal to Egyptian parents, he has often made diversity and the ideas of difference and diversity themes in his work, some of which were co-written with friends and colleagues. His works have been performed at theatres and festivals (and school gyms) across Canada, the US, Australia and Europe. He was named the 2017 recipient of the Siminovitch Prize, Canada's most prestigious prize in Theatre. He currently lives in Vancouver British Columbia, where he continues his work with community-based advocacy programs that use writing and/or theatre as tools for effecting political and social change.

Camyar Chai has worked in theatre and film for over twenty years. He is the founder of Vancouver's acclaimed NeWorld Theatre. He has worked as a freelance actor, director, and writer as well as engaging in Arts Education. In addition to writing plays, Camyar has also written librettos for operas. An award winning theatre maker, he received his Master of Fine Arts in Directing from the University of British Columbia.