After a rushed yet fun commute, when I arrived to the stage reading of Mohammed’s Radio I was hoping to enjoy the play being read aloud, but was a bit uneasy on how it’d all sound coming from the actors on stage. But from what I can remember, the actors turned out to be fine for their roles (even the person who played Terry, who was supposed to play someone else) and the play itself kept my attention throughout, despite there being some parts in the play that were hard to listen to.

I know that profanity was incorporated so much in the play to establish the crude mannerisms of the characters. But as I sat listening to the play I questioned the relevance of particular scenes. I won’t go into detail exactly which scenes, but I’m pretty sure that if you cut out said scenes that consisted entirely of profane conversation, I think the story, or at least the core of the story, would still remain intact.

Despite the racial and ethnic prejudices that the men in the play hold against people different from them, I actually found their characters kind of funny, but not so much their actions at the end of the play. At the beginning and middle of Mohammed’s Radio, their conversations were absurd enough to be a bit enjoyable. Their actions at the climax of the play, however, transformed my opinion of them. Who I saw as likeable yet biased people in the beginning of the play, were savages by the end.

There was still one thing I didn’t quite understand after the play: Why did Kelly choose to turn to Islam knowing she was in a neighborhood where such religious beliefs would put her in danger. I think someone may have asked a question that addressed that issue after the play, but I didn’t remember what the author said about it. It just didn’t make sense to me. I know it’s a way of taking a stand and going against the grain of her fellow town dwellers, but it just seemed to go against reason and just create needless discord with both her family and friends. I think she could’ve first waited to move out of Gerritsen Beach and then express her Muslim beliefs in a more accepting neighborhood.