Identity is what’s on Ms. Said’s mind, and in the engaging if flawed “Palestine,” this self-described Upper West Side princess tries on a few of them. Perhaps comedian suits her best: humor is both her weapon and shield in a world that she can’t control and sometimes doesn’t understand.

In “Palestine” Ms. Said gives a loose tour of her family history and life, which has been an interesting one, even when she didn’t want it to be. That’s what happens when your dad, a Columbia professor and activist, is “the most famous Palestinian-American that ever was.” Though, she quickly adds, she’s not quite sure what that means. “I don’t think there are a lot of famous Palestinian-Americans.” (Mr. Said died in 2003.)

The scene that most vividly shows the complexities to which Ms. Said is so attuned involves an anorexic 18-year-old Najla being dragged on a family trip to the place her Jewish friends call Israel. To her, though, it is “completely different” because, she says, “I went to Palestine.” On a day trip to Gaza she wears an Agnès b. skirt and suede pumps from Madison Avenue. It’s what she has that seems most modest.

Gaza, with its barbed wire and heat and anger, leaves an impression: it “is nothing to me but a horrifically frightening place.” Najla had wanted to go to Paris.

Ms. Said, who juxtaposes her adolescent self-pity with the sadness she sees, understands she is a creature of privilege. Those suede pumps, her American passport and comfortable life back home set her apart from the Palestinian children she feels kinship with.

And when she leaves, she seems to want to forget them. Politics don’t interest her; they’re for her father and brother. The Middle East she embraces is Beirut, with its beaches and nightclubs (and also bombs), not her father’s cause.

Ms. Said is a warm, appealing performer and a good mimic, but she doesn’t have a lot of range. That might be fine in a shorter piece, but “Palestine,” directed by Sturgis Warner, feels long and repetitive at just under two hours. It begins to spin its wheels as Ms. Said tries to resolve a narrative full of unresolved feelings.

It’s a long time before we get to 9/11, the moment Ms. Said says changes her life forever, even if how it changes it isn’t entirely clear. And the final anecdote, meant to show how important being Palestinian is to her, is a muddle. Still, there’s something heroic about her broader stance: to a topic that generates fury and recrimination, she brings a lightness and a steadfast refusal to hate.