Threesome is sharply written, bitingly funny, and ultimately devastating.

Threesome by Yussef El Guindi. Directed by Danielle Fauteux Jacques. Staged by Apollinaire Theatre Company at Chelsea Theatre Works, 189 Winnisimmet St., Chelsea, MA, through May 7.

Leila (Alison Meirowitz McCarthy) in the Apollinaire Theatre Company production of “Threesome.” Photo: courtesy of Apollinaire Theatre Company.

By Kamela Dolinova

The threesome — that most common, and most frequently botched, fantasy of monogamous life — is a delicate dance that requires openness, communication, and genuine desire from all involved. Too often, however, the arrangement is driven by the wrong reasons: a couple is bored with their sex life, or perhaps someone is seeking revenge for perceived sexual slights. Nearly any threesome, outside the realm of fantasy, is endangered by numerous emotional land mines. The excitement of novelty swiftly dissolves into unflattering comparisons, jealousy, homophobia, or the use of the third person’s body as a prop in a relationship drama.

So it is in Yussef El Guindi’s Threesome, where a young Muslim couple invite a cute but obnoxious white colleague into bed with them. As with so many ill-thought-out sexual adventures, this Threesome runs true to formula: it starts out feeling as if it will be a fun romp, quickly turns awkward as buried conflicts are unearthed, and finally becomes a lot darker than seemed possible at the beginning. It’s also sharply written, bitingly funny, and ultimately devastating.

The play opens with a couple in bed, mostly dressed and eyeing each other with mischief and some unnamed tension. The chemistry between Leila (Alison Meirowitz McCarthy) and Rashid (Mauro Canepa) is obvious and feels longstanding: the actors exquisitely convey both their characters’ intimacy and difficulties from the first moment. The immediate source of the conflict becomes clear when Doug (Geoff Van Wyck), wearing nothing but socks and sneakers, comes bounding into the room, apologizing for his bout with diarrhea. We are thrust into the exceedingly personal world of this play, though the personal is about to become very political indeed.

The threesome the couple has planned is more than your average stab at extramarital experimentation. Leila, an Egyptian woman and feminist writer, is attempting to make a point through this act. Rashid, her Egyptian-American boyfriend, has agreed to the tryst but is plainly uncomfortable. The interaction slowly becomes less and less sexy and more and more fraught. Doug goes into overindulgent detail about his sexual and emotional history and makes thoughtless racist comments; Leila and Rashid argue over feminist issues. There is also the weighty question of Leila’s book, which is speeding toward publication. She has not allowed Rashid to read the volume. And what, exactly, happened in Egypt when Leila and Rashid were there, participating in the revolution?

During the first act some of these conflicts and conversations come off as a little manufactured. At times, the dramatist doesn’t quite justify his characters’ self-indulgence. But the second act jacks up the stakes considerably as it expertly peels back the veils (in some cases, literally) and explores the ways in which the violations in Egypt poisoned Leila and Rashid’s relationship, and the lengths to which Leila has gone to reclaim her own body.

A warning to the viewer: while the first act is uncomfortable, the second act is downright brutal, its power thrusting Threesome firmly out of the sex comedy genre and into unflinching political theatre. This is a rich and thorny piece of drama that takes a hard look at bodies, sex, violence, and domination. One after another, the characters’ bodies become battlegrounds — stripped bare, scrutinized, and commodified. It is unclear, even in the final, shattering moments, whether that territory can ever be taken back.

A scene from Apollinaire Theatre Company’s production of “Threesome.” Photo: courtesy of Apollinaire Theatre Company.

The Apollinaire Theatre Company’s production dances ably with this script, largely due to the fearless and (sometimes literally) naked performances of the three actors. Canepa’s Rashid is surprisingly sympathetic even though he puts his foot in his mouth repeatedly; the actor gives the character a sincerity and vulnerability that helps illuminate the confusion of a man whose world is spinning apart. Doug is breathtakingly inane and infuriatingly entitled, but Van Wyck gives him a goofiness, a youthful charm, that makes him compelling even as he reveals himself to be the most ignorant of monsters. Best of all, McCarthy’s Leila is marvelously complex: with her clipped speech and her defensive physical postures, she portrays a strong woman trying desperately to reclaim herself without opening herself to further violation.

As usual, Danielle Fauteux Jacques’ direction focuses on intensity and relentlessness. One feels, when watching her productions, that there is no escape from whatever ugly truth is on display. Aryn Colonero’s cage-like set enhances this focus, although the maze-like patterns in the walls become distracting at times. The second act’s over busy photoshoot location communicates the Western view of “Arabs” in the most effectively offensive way possible. The symmetry of the beds — in the first act a private, Westernized space, in the second a public, Orientalist fantasy — underlines the play’s questions about the ownership of bodies, culture, and sexuality.

The costume design supports the play’s themes simply and directly: Doug, at first fearlessly naked, can easily disappear back into his young-white-guy anonymity just by putting some clothes on. Rashid, wearing a shirt and shorts in bed even as he is preparing to have sex, is all about repression and bodily shame; his time nude is short-lived and reluctantly performed. Leila, in full-coverage loose pajamas and robe throughout the first act, has unwittingly replicated the idea (if not the reality) of the hijab. Her abject silence when she does take on the abaya and niqab (or full facial veil) in Threesome‘s final sequence is heart-stopping.

It is near-guaranteed that audience members will leave this production at one emotional extreme or the other: either shouting protests, aching in grief, or simmering in silence, awash in questions. More important, Threesome will make you think hard about the reasons behind your responses.

Kamela Dolinova is a writer, actor, director, healer, and person with too many jobs. She loves the community and little theatre scenes in Boston, and has recently enjoyed working with Flat Earth Theatre, Theatre@First, and Maiden Phoenix Theatre Company. She also blogs at Power In Your Hands.