Évelyne de la Chenelière's "Bashir Lazhar" is the story of a French-Algerian political refugee living in Montreal. This play, essentially a monologue, was beefed up and adapted into a film in 2011 and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. The stage play is an intimate affair, performed small-scale with a sparse set at the Kranzberg's black box, but J. Samuel Davis breathes a world of life into the character of Bashir Lazhar -- this immigrant trying to navigate his surroundings in the wake of a civil war, in a superb solo performance full of resilience, heartache and humor.
The play opens with Bashir nervously preparing to greet his classroom of sixth graders. The students have tragically lost their previous teacher, Martine Lachance, and Bashir has taken the job as her substitute. He's got a way with his students -- encouraging but tough, trying to help them cope with the loss of Lachance, and prepare them for the world and the violence within it, because he, along with his students, have been through harrowing times. His story unfolds slowly through a series of scenes that jump back and forth in time. Bashir bonds with the kids, talks to colleagues, breaks the school regulations with his unorthodox teaching style, and has mournful conversations with himself and flashback conversations with his family as they try to escape the Algerian Civil War.
