Political Conflicts, Family-Style

A cacophony of arguments adds up to chaotic noise. It’s the sound of no one being heard, until one voice cleanly breaks through to articulate a point about the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1948. Then that premise is quickly rejected, leading to another theory and counterattack.

“Urge for Going,” Mona Mansour’s tidy portrait of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon that is being presented as part of the Public LAB series, begins with a family argument illustrating the challenges of even discussing Middle East politics. And yet the rhythm of this opening spat, the music of the dialogue as staged by Hal Brooks, is as precise as a double-act comedy routine. The confusion appears carefully orchestrated.

The protagonist, the teenager Jamila (Tala Ashe), is less invested in these debates than her older relatives, and the play itself seems, like her, to be trying hard to avoid settling into polemics. It has a point of view, but it’s a backdrop to a conventional father-daughter drama of the kind in which it is slowly revealed that two seemingly different members of a family have more in common than you think.

Jamila is studying for the college-entrance exam and hopes to leave the region. But to qualify she needs her literary-minded father Adham (Ramsey Faragallah) to show proof of his residency, which turns out to be more difficult than she thought.

Ms. Mansour manages some lovely turns of phrase, but her writing can veer into the sentimental and pat. Flashbacks seem designed to give psychological explanations and generate sympathy rather than increase the stakes.

But the most serious problem of this production is that the critical major performances don’t connect. Ms. Ashe strains too hard underlining the subtext of her lines. Mr. Faragallah, by contrast, remains rigid. His character is remote, but that doesn’t mean he should remain so for the entire show.

The group scenes, however, put flesh on abstract arguments and historical squabbles. Through a close look at mundane life, the drama argues for how dates like 1948 and 1967 haunt this family’s present, articulating the corrosive impact of being “permanently impermanent.”

Noisy political debates may be futile, but avoiding them may be more so.

Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place, East Village; through Sunday.