Performance Review: DODI AND DIANA, by Kareem Fahmy. Directed by Reginald L. Douglas. Mosaic Theater, DC. September 23, 2025.

Kareem Fahmy’s premiere of Dodi and Diana, directed by Reginald L. Douglas and produced by the Mosaic Theater in DC, was broadly advertised as a “sexy, thrilling new play, where fate, royalty, and passion collide!” This collision took the form of “astrological doubling”, using astrology as a non-realist dramaturgical device to link the titular royals to its central characters. Through this device, Fahmy evokes a sort of mystic, almost mythical sense of reincarnation, using it as a lens to examine “the most intimate aspects of marriage and love” (Mosaic Theater trailer).

The production certainly primed the audience for seduction: the entire stage was a dimly lit, opulent Paris Ritz hotel room, brilliantly designed by Shartoya R. Jn. Baptiste. The space was bathed in gold shades; brass frames adorned the walls, textured drapes lined the windows, and at the center, a king-size plush bed was draped in luxurious silk sheets and pillows (Image 1). The space felt both indulgent and claustrophobic, a gilded chamber where seduction and entrapment coexisted.

            Married couple Jason (Jake Loewenthal) and Samira (Dina Soltan), whose simmering sexual tension was undeniable, find themselves confined inside this lavish yet liminal space, at Jason's instigation. Under the guidance of an astrologer, Jason repeatedly insists that leaving the room at any time during a mysterious 72-hour convergence—culminating in a solar eclipse—will bring their relationship ill fortune. The eclipse, in Fahmy’s narrative world, intentionally coincides with the twenty-fifth anniversary of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed’s fatal car crash. This reference is subtly foregrounded in the opening scene: the space remains concealed behind curtains and darkness while projected car headlights cut through the stage. There is a sudden flashing of lights followed by the sound of a crash, reenacting the trauma of the accident. A few minutes later, the curtains open and Jason walks up on stage. This performance sets up Jason and Samira as mirrors to Dodi and Diana’s infamous interracial relationship. Fahmy takes this doubling a step further by linking the couple to Diana and Dodi through astrology, labeling them “astrological doubles” to imply that their relationship is governed by the same celestial forces and perhaps destined for a similarly dramatic or scrutinized fate.

Jason and Samira’s forced confinement within this box of a hotel room reveals a great deal about who they are, what they want, and how their repeated patterns reflect signs of an unhealthy marriage. On the surface, their relationship appears to be laced with overflowing love and devotion to one another. The graceful and smooth choreography of their intimacy, directed by Sierra Young, plays a huge part in shaping the overly saccharine image. Their bodies move with elegance, each anticipating and responding to the other’s speed and momentum. Their arms and legs intertwine in a series of twists, turns, and movements that feel sexually intimate, rushed yet tantalizing, rough yet delicate. The constant kissing, caressing, and touching in seemingly alluring ways (Image 2), evoke a sense of unease to witness these intimate moments. It feels voyeuristic, as if one were invasively peering into the private life of this intensely in-love pair, whose constant physical affection borders on the cloyingly enviable.

However, this abundance of physical affection paradoxically reveals an underlying emotional hollowness. The incessant need for touch and proximity begins to feel like a desperate attempt to fill a void. Whenever Samira wants more than just kissing and caressing, Jason finds a way to interrupt the moment and withdraw, as if deliberately avoiding sleeping with her. They often lie half-naked, sprawled across the bed and entangled with one another, but the encounters always end on an awkward note. Throughout the play, Fahmy consistently makes us wonder if their attraction alone is powerful enough to sustain their relationship. After a certain point, the couple slip into a relentless loop of attempted intimacy so repetitive and insistent that it becomes painful and unbearable to watch. This loop reveals the deep imbalance in their desires: Samira craves deep emotional and physical connection, often initiating sex, while Jason, racked with insecurity, cannot bring himself to sleep with her while sober.

Alcohol and drugs become important in exposing the fractures within the relationship. Jason strikes a clandestine deal with the hotel bellboy, slipping him a generous sum of money to procure drugs. When the substances finally arrive, Jason and Samira consume them along with copious amounts of alcohol, and the scene transforms into a woozy, altered state. This shift is rendered vividly through expertly executed lighting, designed by Sage Green. The hotel room lapses into a nightclub-like atmosphere, saturated with electric blues, neon pinks, and chartreuse greens that pulse across the stage. The fast- shifting lights paired with booming pub music create a sensory environment that mimics the dizziness of intoxication, making the audience feel as though the room itself is spinning.

Within this heightened atmosphere, Jake’s and Dina’s performances expand physically and emotionally. Their movements become looser, more urgent, and more reckless, allowing the scene to surge towards a feverish climax. In their intoxicated haze, the couple finally collapse together, spent. But when the light and sound shift again to the ordinary hotel room, indicating the start of a new day, sobriety returns and so does stark clarity. The fragile connection they briefly achieve during inebriation disintegrates once again. Restless attempts at connection, failed stabs at intimacy, and the slow surfacing of frustrations, insecurities, and long-buried resentments create the play’s momentum: a cyclical, suffocating rhythm that mirrors the eclipse’s slow movement toward totality.

The play’s engagement with astrology places it in conversation with a long lineage of theatrical cosmology. In Greek mythology and even Shakespeare, eclipses were understood as omens, especially for rulers, and horoscopes were thought to reveal one’s innate character (Sondheim). And yet, even in that world, sometimes the will remains free. Fahmy gestures toward this tension between fate and agency by tethering Jason and Samira to the royal love story of Diana and Dodi. The dramaturgical premise suggests that while the interracial, hyper-public couple of the 1990s were undone by forces far beyond their control, Jason and Samira, who remain confined, anonymous, and ordinary, might yet choose differently. And yet, to my utmost chagrin, this play refuses that resolution. Instead of embracing each other with renewed clarity, Jason and Samira remained mired in their unresolved resentments, leaving the allusion provocatively incomplete.

While frustrating, this uncertainty does lead to a limited degree of dramaturgical success. Astrology fills the world of the play, but it never fully controls the story: the idea of Jason and Samira as “cosmic doubles” nudges them toward repeating a tragedy, yet it does not seal their fate. Instead, the play forces both characters to confront the insecurities and secrets that gradually pull them apart. Jason carries guilt over accidentally killing Samira’s dog, and that Samira weaponized the incident. Samira in turn has hidden her potential overseas acting opportunities, knowing that they would sharpen Jason’s sense of inferiority and that he would not want her to go. These layers of messy toxicity prevent them from building the secure and healthy relationship they both desire. Their point of breakdown comes from the discovery of fractures within their relationship, not from the stars. In this way, astrology functions as both a mythic frame and a psychological alibi: in the claustrophobic environment of the Ritz Paris suite, the astrological layer creates a formal tension that holds the production together. This friction is imperative to the play’s design, mirroring the instability of the marriage itself; the setting is glamorous and yet restrictive, because it turns out that Jason and Samira’s relationship is, too, a beautiful trap (Image 3).

In the end, the play Dodi and Diana does not deliver a fully resolved mythic parallel nor a neatly coherent naturalistic drama. Instead, it offers a fractured portrait of two people caught between who they are and who the world tells them they might be. The play succeeds best when showing the grinding pressure that external narratives and internal wounds exert on an intercultural marriage. Even if it fails in uniting its loftier ambitions, it remains a compelling exploration of how the sexy and thrilling collision of fate, royalty, and passion conspire to shape, and sometimes destroy, the intimacies we build.