Perched on a park bench in Vienna, Austria, a group of friends and family anxiously await news of an older brother’s sentencing following his recent altercation with police. Will the sentence be one year? Two? Rumors fly, but no one knows. As they wait, their anxiety and frustration mount, and th e pressure begins to boil over. In an effort to channel their restless energy, they organize a protest in his honor, pushing back against the racial injustice and arbitrary violence they’ve been subject to their entire lives. But as tensions escalate, each is forced to confront their anger, guilt, and frustration with a society quick to vilify “the other” and a justice system that delivers judgment without compassion.  Using a mixture of dramatic monologue, spoken word poetry, choral commentary, music, and projection, Austrian-Iranian playwright Arad Dabiri’s Pressure!, presented by ExPats Theatre at the Atlas Performing Arts Center rips through the messy edges of identity and belonging, family and responsibility, leaving you raw but clearer eyed at the infinite shades of gray each one of us casts upon this world with our actions — even when our intentions are good.  Sacha Marvin (Murat), Elijah Williams (Omar), and Max Jackson (Freddie) in ‘Pressure!’ Photo by Teresa Castracane. Although we never meet him or even learn his name, the often invoked brother, friend, and soon-to-be-convicted man is a central figure throughout the play, driving the characters forward by making them pause to reflect or rage, and turning their minds toward action. In prison awaiting sentencing for a crime whose details are slowly revealed over the course of the show, he was both martyr and fool, victim and aggressor, depending on whom you listen to, and when.  Often talking to “Dadash” (an affectionate term loosely translated as “older brother” or “bro”) in monologue letters is his brother Hassan, played by Alie Karambash. Hassan is a university student studying to be a doctor and conflicted by the mix of his Austrian upbringing and Iranian heritage. In a towering yet gentle performance, Karambash highlights the sacrifices of assimilation and the pressure to carry the family forward while his brother awaits his fate. Be a good member of society, they say; be a good “k*nake” (a slur leveled against non-Germanic looking people), he hears. Karambash’s eyes as Hassan are wide and his heart is open with an earnest anger that breaks your heart.  His sister Shirin (played by Ege Yalcinbas) is focused, opinionated, and more eager to integrate into life in Austria. For Shirin, having witnessed the limited options open to Iranian women during their childhood summers in Tehran, the promise of Austria far surpasses any nostalgia for Iran. She cuts her hair short, wears bold colors in defiance of a heritage that she feels would have her subdued, educates herself to go toe-to-toe with anyone, and throws herself into Western life with an ironclad conviction that integration will keep her and her loved ones safe. Grounded but still angry at the unseen battles she must fight for equality, Yalcinbas’ Shirin is both level-headed and a voice of caution to the boys in what they stand to lose as their agitation builds to volatile highs.  TOP: Ege Yalcinbas (Shirin) and Max Jackson (Freddie); ABOVE: Mac Jackson (Freddie), Ege Yalcinbas (Shirin), Alie Karambash (Hassan), Elijah Williams (Omar), and Sacha Marvin (Murat), in ‘Pressure!’ Photos by Teresa Castracane. Bonded by a tangled past of youthful indiscretions and illicit activity, Hassan’s three friends are desperate for an outlet as they wait for sentencing. Over the course of a series of rotating monologues, the street-tough group wrestles with the words weighing heaviest on them — frustration, guilt, shame, anger, and a simmering hate at the injustices they encounter every day. Freddie, played by Max Jackson, is consumed by frustration at his own family’s Nazi past and present right-wing tolerances. Lashing out at the exploitative, capitalist system he feels is backing his life into a corner, Jackson’s Freddie weaves micro-moments of agitation into his performance, making Freddie feel as unstable as he is unreliable.  Omar, played by Elijah Williams, is burdened by the inherited guilt of colonialism and a deep, inescapable shame. With desperate eyes and clenched arms, Williams brings Omar to life through erratic movements and angry outbursts, embodying a man crushed by a conscience that demands atonement for actions he didn’t commit yet can’t escape. And Murat, played by Sacha Marvin, fought most often with a hate threatening to bubble up and surround him, attacking the Islamic religious heritage the head coverings of his family indicated. Drawing on his background in poetry, Marvin brought Murat a persistent and poignant grief — one that could hold senseless pain in the same soliloquy as his yearning for a peace that Murat had never been lucky enough to experience.   To create a visceral sense of turmoil throughout the story, this production cleverly paired a camera projected onto the back wall with a stand microphone. In doing so, it amplified each character’s monologues by forcing you to split your focus between the literal, living, breathing human being in front of you and the close-up projection of their mouth on the back wall. The achieved effect gave these unfiltered voices an additional edginess and a guerrilla-documentary style.  In a jagged, bare-bones black-box production, the translation and direction by Karin Rosnizeck were riveting in their relentless, frenetic pacing. With characters moving from mic to bench to camera to band (with a special shoutout to the thrilling opening scene of pacing and muttering that grabbed you by the shoulders from the very start), movement/fight director Laura Aresi masterfully mapped the flow of energy and built the show into a pressure cooker for the characters and the audience. The set and especially the projection design by Tennessee Dixon were perfectly balanced between structure and abstraction to give the audience an arresting exposure into the life-and-death consequences of racial profiling, injustice, and pressure. Similarly nuanced, the costume design by Donna Breslin was subtle and powerful in its choices, which colors were used, when masks were used, and how a simple puffer coat could represent so much hate, fear, and regret. Sound design by Nardia Strowbridge brought a European punk-rock feel to Washington, DC, and lighting design by Ian Claar brought stark focus to the characters and their feelings of trapped despair. A powerful punch in the stomach, Pressure! by ExPats Theatre at Atlas Performing Arts Center is a harrowing examination of the dangers of a world looking for simple answers to complex questions, to identity, to justice, and to guilt. At a time in our country when the voices of hate and fear, and the pain of injustice and oppression, feel amplified to the point of breaking, this show is also an important reminder that the best remedy for hard times is action, and that multiple conflicting things can be true at the same time.  Running Time: 90 minutes with no intermission. Pressure! plays through April 5, 2026, presented by ExPats Theatre performing at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, Lab II, 1333 H St NE, Washington, DC. Showtimes are 7:30 PM Fridays and Saturdays, with 2:30 PM matinees on Saturdays and Sundays. For tickets ($49, $44 for senior citizens), call the box office at (202) 399-7993, or purchase them online. Tickets are also available on TodayTix. Buy Tickets Discount Tickets Pressure!By Arad Dabiri CASTSacha Marvin as MuratMax Jackson as FreddieAlie Karambash as HassanElijah Williams as OmarEge Yalcinbas as Shirin  PRODUCTION AND CREATIVE TEAMDirector and Translator: Karin RosnizeckStage Manager: Danielle HatcherSet and Projection Designer: Tennessee DixonCostume Designer: Donna BreslinLighting Designer: Ian ClaarSound Designer: Nardia StrowbridgeMovement and Fight Director: Laura ArtesiPRESSURE! was created in collaboration with Wiener Wortstätten Drama Lab. SEE ALSO: ExPats Theatre to present U.S. premiere of ‘Pressure!’ by Arad Dabiri (news story, February 11) The post ExPats Theatre’s riveting ‘Pressure!’ is a powerful punch in the stomach appeared first on DC Theater Arts. ...read more read less