Review: Scones and tea won’t help Theresa Rebeck’s ‘Zealot’ at SCR

“Zealot,” Theresa Rebeck’s new play at South Coast Repertory, is set in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, at the start of the Hajj, the annual holy pilgrimage that able adult Muslims are required to make at least once in their lifetime. But like most unconvincing dramas, its real locale is the land of theatrical generalities, where details are glossed over and credibility is in short supply.

Ann (Charlayne Woodard), the American undersecretary of State, has arrived at the British Consulate in a frenzy of foreboding. A Muslim herself, she has ostensibly flown in because of “disturbing Internet chatter” hinting at the possibility of a mass demonstration involving Muslim women.

This isn’t the kind of thing that a high-ranking American official would normally check out herself, but there’s nothing normal (or particularly believable) about this visit.

Edgar (Alan Smyth), a Cambridge-educated civil servant who’s living proof that the old-boy-network is alive and well, is nursing a hangover and not quite up to the demands of this emergency meeting. But as British consul, he has no choice but to swallow a few headache tablets and hear out this alarmed American official over tea and scones.

Their tense (though hardly rapier) repartee is interrupted by a report of a violent occurrence. Apparently, a group of women at the “holiest place in Islam” removed their head scarves as they kneeled in prayer, provoking pandemonium with their “sacrilege.”

Usama (Demosthenes Chrysan), a Saudi minister, relays the news to Edgar and Ann in the horrified manner of a messenger in a Greek tragedy: “I saw a woman, her arm had been torn off. Women, lying in the dirt. Blood, everywhere. Bodies moving against each other in terror and unknowing, you can see nothing because everything is upon you. Men, lost to themselves, becoming animals before the eyes of Allah.”

Enter Marina (Nikki Massoud), a soft-spoken Iranian woman seeking American asylum to avoid arrest for her part in the protest. Usama considers her a terrorist and wants her handed over to Saudi authorities, but Ann sympathizes with this Farsi-speaking Joan of Arc who claims to have a direct line to Allah and promises to serve as her protector.

Complicated battle lines are drawn and redrawn as “the special relationship” between the British and the Americans is tested both by Middle Eastern politics and the patriarchy (the two aren’t always readily distinguishable).

The problem with “Zealot” isn’t the dramatic outline, which is reasonable enough, but the poorly observed execution. Ann and Edgar, two of the clumsiest diplomats ever to represent their nations, bicker like they’re in some musty Edwardian drama. Marina speaks English not like an Iranian who has studied in the United States but like a character written by an American writer with barely a passing acquaintance with her culture and psychology.

Rebeck, a prolific playwright (“Seminar,” “Mauritius”) and the creator of the short-lived NBC backstage soap opera “Smash,” has a habit of letting her plots get the better of her artistic vision. The action in her plays is often artificially ginned up, and ideas are then lacquered on as a high-minded distraction from the fakery.

Here, the debating points are given pride of place, but those making the arguments are hard to credit. Woodard and Smyth play their roles with admirable conviction, but they cannot supply the realism that their playwright has withheld from them.

“Zealot,” which has been directed by SCR artistic director Marc Masterson on a handsome office set designed by Ralph Funicello, has come off the Rebeck assembly line with its screws loose and its wires sticking out. Masterson has a long-standing relationship with the playwright, but producing her latest in this premature state has done her no service.

Quizzically, an intermission has been plopped in the middle of this sketch, which runs just over 90 minutes. It’s never a good sign when you leave a world premiere pondering the superfluity of the interval.

charles.mcnulty@latimes.com

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‘Zealot’

Where: South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays-Fridays, 2: 30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Ends Nov. 16.

Tickets: Start at $22

Info: https://www.scr.org, (714) 708-5555

Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes