Off-Broadway play 'Duke and Roya' explores love across cultural divides
NEW YORK (WABC) -- A new off-Broadway play is exploring love across cultural divides with a contemporary twist.
"Duke and Roya" stars Jay Ellis as an American rapper who falls for his Afghan interpreter while performing for troops in Kabul.
The production features original hip-hop music woven throughout the romantic drama.
This isn't your typical stage drama, it's a story about love, survival, and impossible choices, all set to a hip hop beat.
"You're going to dance in your chairs. We're taking our audiences on a whole roller coaster, all the emotions," said Stephanie Nur, "Roya."
"Duke and Roya" follows an American who falls in love with an Afghan interpreter in war torn Kabul.
The show ultimately asks the age-old question, can love truly conquer all?
"It's two people from two completely different worlds," said Jay Ellis, "Duke."
"Who can come from different places, and we can also find joy in the middle of devastation," said Charles Randolph-Wright, the writer.
"It's an opportunity to bring our audiences some empathy and educate them," Nur said.
"Over the course of the play, we get to really watch this beautiful relationship start to unfold," Ellis said.
He plays "Duke," a successful rapper.
His lyrics, however, never really meant much to him. That is until he meets Roya played by Nur.
"I have five songs in this. I will say, I think I had one when rehearsal started, and somehow," he said.
"Because he's so good, they kept adding," Nur said.
"Somehow they added four more. So, I got five now," he said.
Ellis is used to acting on screens, both big and small. But rapping on stage, well, that was a first.
"Part of the reason that I wanted to do a play is to challenge myself," he said. "Theater is an actor's medium, and it's an opportunity for us to get to tap into something that's completely different that we don't do in TV and film because it is so start stop."
He says he will bring elements of this into his TV and film work.
"Such as a great reminder of, like, space yes. And how to use space and, like, how to have life around you while a scene is happening," Ellis said. "When you get locked into, like, a close-up and it's, like, shoulders up, you're not really thinking about all these other things, but, like, that is part of the experience of storytelling. Like, it's a full instrument. It's a full, the space around us, the body. The voice changes up and down, and sometimes we need to project."
Writer Randolph-Wright originally conceived the story over a decade ago.
"I read a book about women in Afghanistan, and it floored me because I knew nothing about it. It's just such a different world, and I started working on this play. And we workshopped it there. We worked on it there, and then just put it aside," he said.
The show has a lot to offer and something for everyone.
"If you love music, if you want to come and see a new play that is moving things forward, then you should come see 'Duke and Roya,'" Dariush Kashani said.
"I'm very happy to be in it, so just come and see it. Okay?" Noma Dumezweni said.
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