American Premiere Of ‘Angry Young Man’ Begins Its Guild Hall Run On May 31

Immigration, and the inevitable culture clashes it brings, is one of the hottest topics now being debated in this country and abroad. Shifting demographics are causing governments to rethink polices and solutions and the way in which we welcome newcomers from foreign lands—or not—says a lot about who we are as a people.

Immigration is also the subject of “Angry Young Man,” a British comedy by playwright Ben Woolf opening next week at Guild Hall. Despite the gravity of the subject matter, it’s a theatrical piece that takes politically loaded material and presents it in a way that is surprisingly humorous and lighthearted.

Which is precisely what makes it so effective.

Stephen Hamilton directs this American premiere of the play, which comes to the John Drew Theater at Guild Hall in association with Urban Stages in Manhattan, where it ran earlier this spring. “Angry Young Man” begins its run at Guild Hall on May 31 with performances through June 18.

This four-character play is told from the point of view of Youssef, a young surgeon who has left his homeland in the Middle East for England, where he hopes to build a new life. With a job interview already scheduled at a London hospital, he appears to be well on his way. But within hours of his arrival, Youssef is robbed of both his identity and his money. He takes shelter in Hyde Park, where he struggles to be understood by frightened passersby. Finally he is rescued by Patrick, a good-natured young man who is eager to offer the foreigner some guidance and assistance.

Or is he?

Patrick has his own motives for befriending the foreigner and an adventurous ideological series of events ensues, leaving Youssef to grapple with a confounding set of strange situations and even stranger people. When the pair go into a bar, Youssef accidentally kills a menacing skin-head and his bright future in this new land suddenly begins looking much murkier.

The structure of “Angry Young Man” is unique in that the role of Youssef belongs to not one of the actors, but all four of them. The characters are simply named A, B, C and D, and they each play Youssef at various points, as well as the other characters he encounters along the way.

“It plays with time. You go from present to the past and the four players are playing different aspects of Youssef at different times,” said Mr. Hamilton during a recent interview with some of the cast members in his Sag Harbor studio. “The challenge for the cast and me was to tell the story as simply as we could, to make sure the audience stays with us as we tell it.”

“Honestly, I was mystified by the play in both form and meaning,” he added. “It’s something I’ve never attempted before as a director.”

For Mr. Hamilton, figuring out exactly how to approach “Angry Young Man” was one of the initial challenges. Since the play was written by a Brit, he ultimately turned to the Brits for inspiration.

“In trying to find a way into it, I made this association between the play and its theatrical ancestry in England,” Mr. Hamilton explained. “I was thinking about the post-war extended sketch comedy of the ‘Goon Show,’ and ‘Beyond the Fringe,’ and then there’s ‘Monty Python.’ It was all four white guys and that lineage was very helpful for me.”

It turns out that Ben Woolf also wrote “Angry Young Man” for four young white guys—himself and his university pals. But Mr. Hamilton felt that given the current political environment, the play would be much more effective if the casting went beyond Mr. Woolf’s original vision.

“We could’ve done it like that, but we would have missed an opportunity in this zeitgeist,” Mr. Hamilton said. “We needed women and ethnic diversity, and I wouldn’t want to do it without that.”

This cast of “Angry Young Man” features two men, two women—Christopher Daftsios, Rami Margron, Max Samuels and Nazli Sarpkaya.

“All four of us are so different from each other. We have very different experiences and are from all over the world,” said Ms. Sarpkaya, who came to the U.S. from Turkey at the age of 18. “We’ve all lived in places where we were the outsiders, we’ve also thought in our home countries, ‘I don’t belong.’ We’re doing this as two men, two women, which is different, but we all brought something to the table. It made it so much better than four Brits doing it.”

Ms. Sarpkaya noted that because “Angry Young Man” deals with a touchy subject matter through the use of edgy humor and off-color comments, the play can make some people uneasy. During the run at Urban Stages, she found she had to give her friends permission to not take it all too seriously.

“Everyone was so surprised this was funny and while some felt bad for laughing at this subject, I tried to ensure them that it’s okay,” Ms. Sarpkaya said. “I’m an immigrant. If I couldn’t laugh at myself, I couldn’t live here at all. You always run into an issue that kind of reminds you that you’re different. We’re all different anyway. You have to find the humor in it so they lose their power over you.”

Immigration has been an ongoing issue in the U.K. for a long time, which points to another change Mr. Hamilton made to the script for this production. “Angry Young Man” was first produced for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2005, and the immigrant character was not Youssef from the Middle East, but rather Yuri from a former Soviet bloc country, reflecting the predominate immigrant group coming to the U.K. at that time.

“When this play was written, the issue was more Eastern Europeans than Middle Easterners,” Mr. Hamilton said. “In this country, there was never an issue with the Polish workers or former Soviet bloc workers. So with that we came up with Youssef. Instead of being Eastern European, he’s a surgeon from Cairo or thereabouts.”

Despite the name change, the issues remain the same. Throughout history the arrival of new people from foreign lands has heightened suspicion and created hard feelings. In working through the interactions of the four characters in “Angry Young Man,” one of the things that struck Max Samuels as an actor was the theme of acceptance and tolerance which is interwoven into the structure of the script.

“I think this play operates on two levels,” Mr. Samuels said. “When you see the production it becomes evident it’s operating on the political immigration level and also on the micro interpersonal level. It’s inclusion vs. exclusion and we play a lot with that in our telling of the story.”

He explained that this idea of acceptance versus rejection can be seen in the relationships between the four characters themselves. For example, the D character (played by Christopher Daftsios) is constantly getting shafted and ends up taking on the more humiliating aspects of Youssef’s story. As a result, he finds himself ostracized by his fellow cast members, despite the fact that they are all playing Youssef as well.

“Issues of inclusion and exclusion are something anyone can relate to,” Mr. Samuels added. “Also, do we realize who we’re excluding? I think the thing that’s so fascinating about this play is that even though it was written many years ago, the fact is it’s more timely now than ever before and speaks to the climate of today.”

The American premiere of “Angry Young Man,” written by Ben Woolf and directed by Stephen Hamilton, is offered in association with Urban Stages and producer Ellen Myers. The play runs Wednesday, May 31, to Sunday, June 18, at Guild Hall, 158 Main Street, East Hampton. Shows are at 8 p.m. except Saturday June 10, when a special benefit performance for Urban Stages begins at 7 p.m. Previews are through June 2 with opening night on Saturday, June 3. The audience is seated on stage and seating is limited to 75. Tickets are $35, $15 for students. Visit guildhall.org or call 631-324-4050.