Entries by Martin Zebari

Before Dinner

March 2, 2021 /0 Comments/in , , /by

Before Dinner follows a single brutal night of conversation between a mother and a son. The mother is a schoolteacher, and the wife of a martyred Palestinian fedayi. The son is a theater student. Before Dinner is a play about generational struggle, and about the inheritance of a generation of young people who came of age during the Arab Spring. It is about what can be said and what can’t, and about the silences and absences that become deafening when parents and children can no longer hear each other. It is about the way successive disasters have forced specific cultural climates on each generation, and the different ways in which each generation finds itself haunted by defeat.

Handala

February 23, 2021 /0 Comments/in , , , /by

Handala is a play that I wrote based on the cartoons of Naji Al-Ali. I am inspired by his work throughout the years before his assassination in London in 1987, and the life that his cartoons still have after his death. As
a writer, I also identify with the symbol of Handala, as it represents the continuation of struggle and resistance against the illegal Occupation. I call active, unarmed resistance “beautiful resistance,” and that is what Naji Al-Ali engaged in: beautiful resistance. I felt it was important to adapt his cartoons for the stage because they are still very relevant. There is so much false history that works to wash the truth of our memories away. Naji Al-Ali, the artist, is an important role model for the continuing commitment to human rights and values. Al-Ali’s creation, Handala, which is often humorous, represents the guardian of these same rights and values. I think that the cartoons of Handala are an intelligent and anguished cry against all the compromises and degradation of our values and rights. Handala’s spirit creates space for crushed people to speak, and to challenge the politicians and merchants of rights and values. Handala is also a vehicle through which we can reclaim our true histories.

I Am Jerusalem

February 23, 2021 /0 Comments/in , , , /by

Thousands of great stories that formed humanity’s imagination up until now, has been erased, forged or appropriated. The continuous occupation of Jerusalem turned it into a battered spirit. I Am Jerusalem gives the city a voice to talk about the atrocities it lived throughout history, embodied in a form of a woman presenting all her stories. This play has sparked a large debate over the issues dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The play in itself, however, is not political in nature. It is a love story and the intention of it is to highlight the plight of the Palestinians, both under occupation & those who are refugees and have lives abroad. The protagonists, Joumana and Rami have to decide between living their romantic Western fantasy or staying in their homes and country. On the other hand, we have Lama and Ali, a Palestinian couple who settle for the life they live. They find love in each other, which is not ideal, but realistic and heart-warming. It shows the difference between sticking to one’s roots and finding a safer and romantic way of living as reflected in both Jomana & Rami’s relationship and Lama & Ali’s relationships as well. Samah once mentioned also that Joumana’s romantic dilemma represents the metaphor of Palestinians who dream of being reunited with their homes and lands that they were forced to leave.

The Final Month of the Fifth Year

February 23, 2021 /0 Comments/in , , /by

The Final Month of the Fifth Year tells the story of Jaber, a Palestinian-Syrian playwright who escaped Syria and lives as a refugee in Gaziantep, Turkey. Jaber is a journalist, and works with a radio station that supports the Syrian revolution. Jaber meets Fadl, a 20-year-old young man who escaped from Aleppo, and begins writing a play based on Fadl’s life, following his difficult journey from Aleppo to Idlib and eventually Turkey. Two additional characters are introduced: Tuba, a half-Turkish, half-Syrian girl who was born and raised in Turkey and who works as translator in the same radio that Jaber works for; and Younes, a Kurdish-Turkish young man, who once had a short-lived relationship with Fadl. Jaber finds himself losing faith in himself and his ability to tell stories, as the complexities of Fadl’s history multiply and embroil everyone around him. Ultimately, Jaber’s attempts wear away at his relationship with Wash, his girlfriend, a character we only meet over video calls. Jaber begins, too, to question his sexuality, and most characters question their understanding of the concept of identity.

Before Dinner

February 23, 2021 /0 Comments/in , , /by

Before Dinner follows a single brutal night of conversation between a mother and a son. The mother is a schoolteacher, and the wife of a martyred Palestinian fedayi. The son is a theater student. Before Dinner is a play about generational struggle, and about the inheritance of a generation of young people who came of age during the Arab Spring. It is about what can be said and what can’t, and about the silences and absences that become deafening when parents and children can no longer hear each other. It is about the way successive disasters have forced specific cultural climates on each generation, and the different ways in which each generation finds itself haunted by defeat.

Layalina

February 23, 2021 /0 Comments/in , , , /by

In 2003, newly wed Layal plans a future with her family as they make plans to immigrate to the U.S. from Baghdad. 18 years later, just outside of Chicago, Layal’s life and responsibilities look unimaginably different from what she had envisioned two decades before. Layalina examines how families maintain their love in the midst of turbulent global and social change.

Against

February 23, 2021 /0 Comments/in , /by

This text confront us with the simple questions about war, power and freedom- about our life under the daily violence, destroying the humanity and the future.

Hamlet Machine

February 23, 2021 /0 Comments/in , , /by

Hamlet Machine, written by Heiner Müller in 1977, was adapted by Ayham Majid Agha in 2018. The Exile Ensemble, of which Ayham serves as Artistic Director, has been part of the Maxim Gorki Theatre in Berlin since the 2016/17 season. The ensemble’s seven actors are investigating the original texts alongside Ayham’s adaptation, as well as researching their own positions in an open ended project. With Hamlet Machine, they’re pursuing the dramatist who radically questions the intellectual’s position in a world that is out of joint, dissecting Shakespeare, among others, and then putting the remaining fragments together again.

Snooze/Nostalgia

February 23, 2021 /0 Comments/in , , /by

The text talks about a popular neighborhood in the old city of damascus, about a love story started from the balconies, about the fair of Time and it surprises, about the families rules and our wishes, about having a better future without loosing the love of your life. Eight characters telling a story of a city, while the young guy is mixing the past with the present and the future in his snooze.

Godless Women

February 23, 2021 /0 Comments/in , , /by

Godless Women is a personal prism of (three) Arab women who have escaped from political oppression, intellectual co-option, or religious custody in their homelands. The play depicts a significant phase in the life of the three women, Ameena, Mariam and Reyhana, when they hover between the past, the present and the future. The characters journey to reach Germany with ruthless smugglers, who seize each chance to exploit their powerless passengers. As they reach their destination, they realize that they are now under a wider and a more complicated type of oppression: an all-pervasive Western superiority, subordinated by an epistemological and ontological clash of civilisations and citizenship. Ameena, Mariam and Reyhana are jeopardised by identity markers of inferiority as women, Arabs, Muslims, and refugees. The three women come to Germany on fake passports or through illegal routes, either by walking across borders or coming by boats. They are aware that their nationalities, religion and race cannot grant them legal entrance to Europe – especially after the Arabic Spring/upheavals. They belong to a geographical area where lives are ungrievable.