Salem works in a gas station and acts as an extra in Damascus' National Theater; for eight months he has been courting Nada, a young widow, meeting only in public places far from her overprotective brothers. Now a friend has agreed to lend the couple his apartment for a two-hour tryst. Salem's Woody Allenesque attempts to get rid of his friend and prepare for the rendezvous endear him to us; his vivid imaginings in which he is both free and a hero show us that he is neither. When Nada finally arrives, agitated and distant, he has his work cut out for him. But the obstacles are both physical (an impossible apartment, constant interruptions) and internal: for the disenfranchised, love, like thought, is of necessity clandestine. Maleh's chamber piece describes how poverty, politics, and the constant crowd make true communication and compassion-not to mention passion-impossible for young people today.