Before you catch *Other*, a new one-man show written by and starring Ari’el Stachel, you should check out an appeal that Mr. Stachel, a Tony Award-winning actor, posted on his Instagram account last summer addressing Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayoral candidate.
Mr. Stachel began his message by noting similarities between himself and Mr. Mamdani: both were 33 at the time (they have since turned 34), both have brown skin, and both love New York City. “I am so proud to live in a world where a Muslim mayor may soon lead the largest city in the world,” the actor, who identifies as Arab, added.
Mr. Stachel is also Jewish, the son of a Yemenite Israeli father and an Ashkenazi American mother. He asked Mr. Mamdani to “name antisemitism clearly—not in footnotes, not with caveats, not lumped in with the many other very valid and real hate crimes in our city, but named as its own pain and its own danger.” He beseeched the politician to help “create a coalition of Jews and Muslims of every race, every background, who believe in a New York that belongs to everyone without erasure.”
The creator of *Other* has been in a unique position to empathize with both groups. Growing up in the shadow of the September 11 attacks, he recounts in this autobiographical show how he felt ostracized by kids who saw him as Arab. Later, as a fledgling actor, he found himself largely relegated to auditioning for terrorist roles — that is, until the opportunity arose to play an Egyptian musician in *The Band’s Visit*, the musical that would earn him Broadway’s most high-profile prize.
Then Mr. Stachel’s momentum was deflated by COVID-19, and he was hit hard by another attack that would mark a date in infamy: October 7, 2023.
Yet what’s most refreshing about *Other* is that Mr. Stachel doesn’t wallow in identity politics; to the contrary, he exposes their idiocy not by preaching, but through first-hand, often amusing experience. The actor doesn’t define his struggles purely—or even principally—along political or cultural lines.
Much of the play’s humor and some of its poignance, for instance, are rooted in Mr. Stachel’s propensity for sweating profusely, stemming from childhood anxiety. At a very young age, we learn, he was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Pressed by a therapist to give his condition a name, he settled on Meredith, after the wicked stepmother in the movie *The Parent Trap*.
Meredith plays a key role in *Other*; assuming her identity, as he will those of more agreeable friends and family members, Mr. Stachel has her shrewishly call out his inadequacies and remark, more than once, on his father’s resemblance to Osama bin Laden.
Aba, as the actor calls his dad, emerges as the most bittersweet figure in the play. Mr. Stachel admits to increasingly shutting him out as a teenager and young man, fearful that his father’s appearance and accent would only work to further alienate him.
Another recurring character is Mr. Stachel’s buddy and fellow struggling actor, Aziz, whose heritage is Egyptian. “What do you say when people ask you what you are?” Mr. Stachel queries during one of their exchanges, to which Aziz responds, “Um… gay?” It’s a laugh line, but like so many others in the play, it makes a point.
“It never even felt like an option to just say American,” Mr. Stachel notes, referring to how he identifies himself when standardized tests require him to check boxes.
When his pals and relatives express differing takes on the war in Gaza, Mr. Stachel wonders, “How can I pick a side when all sides are inside of me?”
Hoping to be conciliatory, he posts an inclusive message on Instagram; the responses, sprawled like a swarm of cockroaches through Alexander V. Nichols’s projection design, are depressingly, if predictably, vitriolic.
Mr. Stachel also reflects on the solidarity and acceptance he found in middle school from a Black friend and his family, and on a girlfriend he met while staying in Uganda, who saw him as white.
Leaping between characters and recollections, the performer projects a boundless energy and a sheer likability that mitigate any traces of navel-gazing or self-pity, even when he recounts the more recent challenges that have stymied him since his triumphant Broadway debut just a few years ago.
By the end of *Other*, you’ll be hoping to see more of Mr. Stachel on stage and in other media, soon. And if he considered a run for political office, I reckon I might support him there as well.
https://www.nysun.com/article/after-reaching-broadways-summit-and-then-being-derailed-ariel-stachel-is-back-with-an-autobiographical-one-man-show-other
