A couple of pals bought me a subscription to the New Yorker (thanks, guys!) and I came home yesterday to find the mailman stuffing the first issue in my mailbox (thanks, guy!).

I idly flipped it open this morning and here was the very first thing my eyes landed on: A short, nice review of Back of the Throat by local playwright Yussef El Guindi. Back of the Throat was the winner of Theater Schmeater’s 2004 Northwest Playwrights Competition and got a full staging there last May. Here’s the review:

To see Yussef El Guindi’s brilliant and sinewy new play, you have to descend twice: first into the basement of the Flea Theatre, and then into the bosom of an intelligence community whose self-restraint has been eroded by post-9/11 paranoia and the Patriot Act. Two government agents search through the belongings of an incredulous Khaled (the convincing Adeel Akhtar), a struggling writer who reminds one of an Arab-American cousin of the young Woody Allen. At first the agents are all daft politeness, but the mock bonhomie soon gives way to a web of allegations. Khaled’s resistance is that of a sane man caught up in Orwellian madness, a sense that’s heightened by the effective work of the director, Jim Simpson. (41 White St. 212-352-3101.)

What a nice way to begin my subscription. Congratulations Yussef!