The family drama traditionally explores the thorny resentments and touching intimacies that are rooted in the home and grow across generations. In The Arrival, tension springs not from a lifetime but from a single encounter: Tom and Samad are brothers who meet for the first time as adults, and are stunned by the similarities they share—and by the power of nature over nurture. Their vastly different adoptive families begin to cast a shadow on the long-lost siblings and their new relationship, leading each to question his past and reconsider his future. Bijan Sheibani’s debut as a playwright (he’s won an Olivier for his directing) reinvents the domestic drama. —C.J.F.