Threesome

"Just as millions of not-at-all-bi women consent to FFM threesomes to please their straight male partners, straight men should be ready to step up to the plate and consent to MMF threesomes," argues sex advice columnist Dan Savage. This principle of equality seems to be driving force behind Leila, the Egyptian-American feminist author at the center of Yussef El Guindi's hilarious and provocative Threesome at 59E59, which is indeed about a sexual encounter between two men and one woman…just not a particularly successful one.

Unfortunately, Leila (Alia Attallah) and her boyfriend Rashid (Karan Oberoi) don't seem to be regular readers of Savage's column. If they were, they would know not to treat their third, a somewhat dopey but well-meaning photographer named Doug (Quinn Franzen), so abhorrently. Savage advises couples to be generous hosts and not inflict their own relationship drama onto the guest. Rashid and Leila do the opposite, questioning Doug's hygiene and openly arguing in front of him.

This whole event seems to be an elaborate thought experiment gone too far. It started with a series of sexual assaults that occurred when Leila and Rashid were in Egypt to support the Tahrir Square protests. Those events are the subject of Leila's latest book, for which Rashid plans on designing the cover art. He wants to prove to Leila that he's not like all those guys in the old country: He is truly committed to a woman's equality in all things, including sex. The ever-combative Leila wants to call his bluff, with poor stupid Doug caught in the crossfire. "The male body isn't under attack," she screams.

""What do you call the high imprisonment rate of young males in this country?" Rashid counters. "You don't need to be on the cover of a fashion magazine to have your body exploited by an industry that feeds off young males." Both gesture wildly, as if they're on a cable news split-screen.

"It's like a seminar," Doug notes, "without any clothes on." Director Chris Coleman seamlessly melds the play's sexual and political themes until you realize they're one in the same (because they are). You may buy a ticket for the full-frontal nudity, but you'll stay for El Guindi's sharp observations of sex, tribe, and power. That turns out to be far more stimulating than any of this show's limp gestures at actual sex.

It's a wonder Doug sticks around for as long as he does. Of course, he has his own struggles with foot-in-mouth disease: "I only once did it with an Arab before," he shares with the Egyptian-American couple, causing us all to wince. The token Anglo-American, he seems to stand in for the blissful ignorance (and fetishization) this country holds toward the Middle East. Franzen brilliantly makes us believe that Doug is just an unwitting dolt, then blindsides us with the possibility that he may be a master manipulator, especially when his relationship with the couple turns out to be a lot more involved than just a one-night stand. Mysterious East, meet inscrutable West.

And while Leila and Rashid bristle at Doug's embrace of orientalist clichés, Shawn Mallory's quietly ridiculous scenic design betrays the fact that they traffic in their own: Their sleek modern apartment features faux-sandstone tiles and sparsely arranged expensive furniture. A low coffee table with an assortment of dates rests downstage from a king-size bed with a white down comforter. During the pre-show, sound designer Casi Pacilio pipes in cool, vaguely Arab lounge music. It's like we're looking at a room in a boutique hotel owned by the Jumeirah Group. It's a pretty predictable dwelling for this pair of overeducated (and apparently financially privileged) hipsters furiously straddling the chasm between their Egyptian and American identities.

Egyptian-born and Seattle-based, El Guindi has explored this divide before, most notably in his plays Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World and Jihad Jones And the Kalashnikov Babes. With Threesome he makes his most direct assault yet at the intersection of sex and culture, resulting in some startling revelations brought forth by the committed work of the cast.

Attallah gives a fierce performance as Leila, a woman who wears her intelligence like body armor. Some of her facial expression will leave you howling. Oberoi captures the desperation of a man torn apart by conflicting impulses: He feels possessive of his girlfriend, even though he knows he shouldn't. Can he be a progressive 21st-century man while also making clear to Doug: no homo? No.

"You're a joke," he lashes out at Doug, "and while a joke can be amusing, you can't really do much with it in bed." Beyond all the sophisticated interior decoration and high-minded academic banter, are we still just cavemen tussling over who has the biggest stick?

El Guindi will leave you with that and a slew of other questions to chew on in this fascinating and unforgettable comedy. On top of that, Threesome serves as a useful guide on how not to organize your own ménage à trois. Seriously: Worst. Threeway. Ever.