What it is instead is a somewhat suspenseful, somewhat slow-moving tale with only one closely examined idea: An American banker, kidnapped by Pakistani terrorists, tries to pay his own ransom by teaching his captors to manipulate the financial markets. Once this plot has been set going, the way seems open to all those themes mentioned above and perhaps a few more; but instead they’re only hinted at, dramatized for a few moments before we’re returned to the simple question of whether Nick Bright will ever earn his freedom. The richness of the characters is promising enough — Nick’s three kidnappers are diverse and complex — and the easy availability of a laptop computer provides the American and his students ready access to the stock exchanges. But playwright Akhtar, whose Pulitzer-winning Disgraced was so stunningly efficient, seems to lack for ideas as this narrative plays out, and eventually the paucity of invention becomes problematic. Yes, there are a couple of unexpected twists in Act Two, but they’re not enough to change our experience. By the end, The Invisible Hand feels surprisingly monotone.
It didn’t have to be: Akhtar’s characters are fascinating and the actors who portray them are all skillful. Joe Ditmyer plays Nick as a professionally confident but emotionally labile financier who’s as likely to burst out in tears at the memory of his family as to bark orders to his captors when it’s time to cash in on the latest trade. Ditmeyer’s Nick is no pushover: His anger at his abusers is constant and self-imperiling as he all too regularly tests the limits of their patience. This isn’t good strategy: Benjamin T. Ismail plays Bashir, the terrorist with whom Nick has the most contact, as an ideological fanatic who’s sure that his country has been ruined by rich America, and who has no scruples about using violence when he thinks it will serve his cause. Equally dangerous is the jihadist group’s spiritual leader, Imam Saleem, played by Mujahid Abdul-Rashid as a worryingly calm and quiet sphinx whose pursuit of lucre is either idealistic or quite venal. Perhaps the finest acting in the whole play is that of Shrey Neil in the relatively small part of Dar, a much-put-upon gofer with generous instincts who’s regularly pushed around by his fellow kidnappers. Sharply directed by Stephanie Gularte, these four characters turn yesterday’s newspaper story into an all-too-credible pageant; it isn’t the acting or directing that keeps The Invisible Hand from entirely satisfying. If only Akhtar had more to say in the play’s two hours, he’d certainly have the right characters with which to say it.
Akhtar does occasionally float some provocative ideas (as one might expect from the author of Disgraced). Bashir talks about Osama Bin Laden as a “cash cow,” whom the Pakistani government consciously sheltered in order to keep American money pouring in, ostensibly to be used for his pursuit. The machinations of a different terrorist group against a Pakistani official become insider trading info; an outdoor humming noise turns out to be American drones, searching for new targets. There’s even a brief discussion of the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement as an instrument with which the U.S. shamelessly acquired world power. But mostly the action and dialogue are as grey as Steven Mitchell’s underground prison set: The kidnappers threaten again and again, the kidnapped repeatedly overplays his hand or, when his life is at stake, cowers; and when Akhtar tries to convince us that the blood in the streets is somehow the result of American money lust, we sigh: not proven. What was apparently supposed to be a Noam Chomsky-like indictment of the rapacious U.S.A. lacks Chomsky’s tireless adducing of accusatory facts. The invisible hand remains mostly invisible.
Still, there’s fine acting here and, on occasion, a resonant idea. And there’s that marvelous starting notion: What if you had to raise a ransom by sitting in your jail cell and playing the market?
A premise like that is worth a good half hour.
But then you’ve got to build on it.
This article appears in Jun 8-15, 2017.