THE BAND’S VISIT is a profoundly beautiful production by two of Boston’s best companies. It goes where only the arts and theater can go—straight to the heart of what unites us. This is “must-see” theater for everyone at this time in our world. A co-production by The Huntington where it was performed, and SpeakEasy Stage, THE BAND’S VISIT is easily among the best of the year and the timing of this show could not be more relevant and crucial.

Photographer: T. Charles Erickson

The plot of this Tony-award winning musical, based on the 2007 Israeli film (screenplay by Eran Kolirin), and loosely based on a true story– announces itself rather humbly at the beginning of the show in a few lines on a screen above the stage:

“Once, not long ago, a group of musicians came to Israel from Egypt. You probably didn’t hear about it. It wasn’t very important.”

It seems that an Egyptian Police Orchestra was headed to play a concert at an Arab Cultural Center in Petah Tikvah, but due to a linguistic mixup, they landed in the (fictional) town of Bet Hatikva in the middle of the Negev Desert, Israel. The year is 1996, the last bus has left, the band ends up spending the night, and what happens there IS very important. Cafe owner Dina played by the sensually resplendent Jennifer Apple steps up and extends the town’s overnight hospitality to the band’s leader Tewfiq, played with great dignity by Brian Thomas Abraham. He is seriously buttoned up in his band uniform, but we sense his reserve will slowly give way to Dina’s exuberance.

Itamar Moses’ book is something of a miracle. Not a lot happens on the surface–there’s not much to do in this small, isolated town– but as soon as we begin to hear the strains of this exquisite middle eastern, jazz-inflected score, music and lyrics by David Yazbek, played onstage by “The Band” itself (musical direction Jose Delgado) everything happens.

Photographer: T. Charles Erickson

One by one each member of the band intermingles with various people in the town. A family invites band member Simon (James Rana) who’s composed the beginnings of a concerto home for dinner. Boston veterans Jared Troilo and Marianna Bassham play a struggling couple with a newborn,  living with her papa played by Robert Saoud–all of them give deeply soulful performances. At a roller disco, the charming, Chet Baker-obsessed Haled (Kareem Elsamadicy) literally gives the berserkly bashful Papi (Jesse Garlick) a few good moves which propel him and the timid object of his affection, Julia (Josephine Moshiri Elwood) into the wings and the night– like Astaire and Rogers on skates. (Thank you Daniel Pelzig, choreograher). A young man (Noah Kieserman who sings like an angel) stalks a telephone booth night after night, and sings a song of infinite longing as he waits for that call from his beloved.

Photographer: T. Charles Erickson

The heart of the show lies in the connection between the lonely, fearless cafe owner Dina and the guarded Tewfiq. They’ve both been buffeted by life, both wounded in different ways. As Dina coaxes Tewfiq out for the evening, they walk to a cafe, sit down together. She starts recalling the Egyptian movies and music she remembers from her childhood and how entranced she was with the sounds that came to her on TV and Radio  “floating in on a jasmine wind…dark and thrilling, strange and sweet.” In a voice which is all those things and more, Jennifer Apple sings “Omar Sharif” one of the most voluptuously exotic songs ever written for the stage, perfect for this moment. It stopped the show.

“Stopping” is precisely what is happening here. These characters have been plucked out of their normal routine and lives, and experience something out of time. The show follows suit and builds momentum not on a climactic turn of external events, but rather on a steady deepening of emotional power which blooms gradually between the lines of dialogue–and there are three languages spoken here: Arabic, Hebrew, English. The dramatic power of “The Band’s Visit” lies in the subtle, quiet spaces between these characters as they connect, and the audience sits rapt, sharing the pulse all human beings recognize in each other. Director and SpeakEasy Artistic Director Paul Daigneault has a gift for the grace and delicacy it takes to release these transcendent moments in a script.

In this script, literally, a verbal mishap has lead these characters–wandering in the desert like all of us–past the limitations of language, culture, and politics, to a deeper place. Through music and theatrical storytelling, this cross-cultural tragi-comedy-drama, as funny as it is sad, reveals the illusion of divisions in a fraught world. Seeing their specific joys and sorrows as universal, these strangers have felt unexpected tenderness and compassion. Reason enough to make THE BAND’S VISIT  MUST SEE theater at The Huntington Theatre through December 17th!