What do people living in a city under siege do?

In the University of Oregon’s riveting production of Them, a young married couple, Leila and Omar, embrace, eat and argue, and fuss over their infant son. In other words, these characters could be anyone. But when the bombs grow closer to their home? They hide under the furniture, as Leila says, “like frightened insects.”

Although Salmah Sabawi’s play presents its characters as victims of a war, it never forgets that they are, above all else, human beings.

UO theater professor Malek Najjar also makes this point clear with his insightful direction. Before the play begins, the duo Acoustic Pilgrims (Denise and Wayne Gilbertson) play Middle Eastern music on a drum and horn, while three young men are on the stage, laughing, sharing a joint, and dancing. This would be a joyful sight if it weren’t for the fact that two of the men are also holding rifles and wearing tactical vests.

The play, which is being presented through Aug. 23 in Portland Center Stage’s intimate Ellyn Bye Studio, adeptly maintains this balancing act between normalcy and violence, but it’s especially present in the home of Omar (Akash Dhruva), and his wife, Leila (Zayne Clayton). Their floor may be covered with a warm, red-patterned rug as well as their baby son’s bouncy seat and stuffed bear, but the family is also surrounded by the frequent sound of gunfire, planes, and bombed buildings falling in pieces to the ground.

Our first sight of the couple is during an air raid, when we see their hunched silhouettes illuminated under a tablecloth – a poetic and vivid tableau that suggests both the tedium and the terror of having to constantly take cover.

In all their scenes together, Clayton and Dhruva give engaging performances, bringing the intimacy of the couple’s everyday interactions to life, whether they’re expressing affection or engaged in their frequent arguments about their best chance for staying alive. Leila wants to follow her parents to Sweden, which looks green in the photos they send her. Omar, in contrast, says the chances of surviving a voyage across the sea are slim, and even if they did get there safely, it’s unlikely they’d be welcome.  

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Like waves of the ocean, the live music performed on a variety of instruments between each scene carries the story forward as it grows increasingly tense – especially when Denise Gilbertson emphatically raps a tambourine – and the window for Leila and Omar’s escape steadily closes.

Expertly drawing us into the drama, the production also narrows the gap between characters and audience, especially with its liberal use of relatable humor. A gleefully amorous Omar, for example, argues that they may as well enjoy what time they have left on earth, and makes a play for Leila whenever their son is asleep. Later, a moment of dark humor also unexpectedly blooms when Leila and her sister-in-law, Salma (Portland actor Dré Slaman), have so many funerals to attend, they don’t realize until after they’ve profusely condoled with a grieving widow that they’ve come to the wrong service.

On the other side of the equation, the evidence of war also makes the characters’ experience more immediate. Thanks to Graham Mauro’s efficient set design backed by a wooden framework, we see the gradual destruction of Leila and Omar’s home as the bombs draw closer. Mauro also designed the sound, and audience members may feel the rumble of jets in their own ribs, while explosions – as well as moments of sudden darkness – punctuate key scenes, bringing home the horror of the couple’s predicament.

The arrival of Salma, Omar’s controversial sister, is a dramatic game-changer, stirring up all the other characters and taking the already established tension up about ten notches. As brilliantly played by Slaman, Salma is a force of nature. While Leila and Omar are muddled by their inability to take action, the decisive Salma, who’s been a victim of an assault and subsequent slurs, has a clear head and a straight spine. Even when she’s smiling, her face wears a fierce expression that thrums with her passion for her family and her own will to survive.

Her vivid presence – and offer to help Omar and Leila – also deepens the themes of the play, exposing ingrained ideas about gender and morals in the other characters … another way in which people divide themselves into “us” and “them.” 

While Omar, who lost his teaching salary when his school was bombed, can barely feed his family, the savvy Salma is prospering as a marriage broker who finds teenage wives for older men, and can afford to pay for Omar and Leila’s passage on a boat. To make matters more complicated, Omar’s friends, Mohamed (Trevor Tarantino) and Majid (Manny Meza), the dancing/gun-toting men at the beginning, question his manliness. They especially love to tease him about the time he was unable to slaughter a lamb.

Underscoring the way war forces people to make impossible choices, Omar must now decide if it’s unmanly to accept his sister’s help. Leila, on the other hand, must choose between her disapproval of what she sees as Salma’s immorality and the survival of her child. 

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Although Omar’s optimism that peace may come to their unnamed country at any time appears to be pure fantasy, he’s not wrong to fear what fate will await them if they leave. Sabawi, whose family fled Palestine in 1967, began writing Them in 2015 in a hotel room in Finland, where she was cautioned to stay inside during an anti-immigrant protest. It’s no wonder, then, that she’s so passionate about her play’s ideas that she graciously offered to waive her royalties for Najjar’s production.

Her faith in the director and his team of student actors and designers was well-placed. The whole time I was watching their production, I asked myself what I would do in this or that situation. As the play demonstrates, the boundary between “us” and “them” is an imaginary line that continues to cause humanity no end of harm.

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Them will continue at Portland Center Stage’s Ellyn Bye Studio at 128 N.W. 11th Ave, Portland, with performances on Aug. 21, 22 and 23 at 7:30 pm. Find tickets here.