Drama - DGTOME

Ishtar in Baghdad

February 23, 2021/0 Comments/in 2009, Drama, Iraq /by midetheatre@gmail.com

Ishtar in Baghdad focuses on female detainees. The play is based on a real incident in 2004 in which female Iraqi prisoners were insulted, beaten and raped. One of the prisoners managed to smuggle a letter to her tribe and urged them to bomb the jail. This coded letter meant that they had been raped and thereby dishonoured, and the only way to purify them was to kill them. The script is a dramatical fantasy, as the events are told by Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of war, sex, beauty and fertility, and her lover Tammuz, the god of food and nature. The two deities descend to Baghdad in 2004 to share with Iraqis their descendants the calamities of war. Ishtar is caught by the US marines and imprisoned in Abu Ghraib prison where she meets Iraqi women detainees. As Ishtar gets into the cell, she witnesses women’s miseries. They are all naked, curled in one corner; they are arguing about the way to purify themselves from this disgrace.

Godless Women

February 23, 2021/0 Comments/in 2005, Drama, Iraq /by Martin Zebari

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.

Half Sack of Bullets

February 17, 2021/0 Comments/in 2009, Countries, Drama, Genre, Palestine, Political, Year /by Arjun Dhawan

Kamilya is operating with all means to prevent Jewish settlers in the old city of Jerusalem from confiscating Haji Saleh’s old café. The haji is her late father in law. Half Sack of Bullets takes place on the cafe’s grand opening night, as Kamilya tells us the real story of the fall of Al Kastal.

A Moment of Silence

February 17, 2021/0 Comments/in 2001, Drama, Iran, Political /by Arjun Dhawan

A young woman’s (Sheeva) life alternates between sleeping and awakening with 3-4 year intervals. Each awakening reveals a socio-political change, including revolution and war. While this life cycle is unfolded, the playwright who is in fact writing the young woman’s lifestory receives life threatening calls from the government’s secret agents.
The play has been widely admired for its innovative approach to playwriting and its audacity to bring to the surface issues of socio-political urgency. It has been translated to more than five languages and has been revived several times in the Middle East, Europe and North America. Its surreal narrative coupled with Mohammad’s poetic yet witty dramatic writing style addresses universal issues about freedom and security.

Wild Wedding

February 17, 2021/0 Comments/in 1991, Drama, Iraq /by Arjun Dhawan

The play revolves around a meeting between a teenager and his mother, who was raped brutally by invasion soldiers, resulting in the young man, who was raised neglected and tortured for the sin of his mother. The play is significant as it represent a prophecy at the time of its writing (1991) for what actually happen in Iraq after 2003 with all its themes and symbols. The translation included a third character that was added by the translator (Alyaa A. Naser) for the significance of explains and clarifying ideas in the original script for the English culture speakers.

Ashes

February 17, 2021/0 Comments/in 2013, Drama, Iraq /by Arjun Dhawan

A reporter is following a lawyer who trued to re open the case of a murdered woman by recalling her dead soul by her grave and interrogates her.

Women of Lorca

February 17, 2021/0 Comments/in 2005, Drama, Iraq /by Arjun Dhawan

The play uses Lorca’ female characters to represent Iraqi women and their suffering first under the control of their own society and then by themselves as they gradually became addicted to the dictatorship of their own selves. Even when they try to break free of such control, the create a new controller by themselves.

Salim Salim

February 16, 2021/0 Comments/in 2014, Countries, Drama, Genre, Israel, Year /by Arjun Dhawan

When Palestinian Salim Abyad is released from an Israeli prison, the Israeli authorities mistakenly bring him to the Gaza border crossing while his family awaits his return on the other side of the country, in the West Bank. Salim knows that if he enters Gaza, he might never see them again. Stranded on the border, Salim has to find a solution before the Israeli soldiers make a choice for him.

A Distinct Society

February 16, 2021/0 Comments/in 2020, Comedy, Diaspora, Drama, Genre, Year /by Arjun Dhawan

A quiet library that straddles the border of the U.S. and Canada becomes an unlikely crucible for five people from around the world. When an Iranian family, separated from one another by the “Muslim ban,” use the library as a meeting place, the head librarian, a U.S. border patrol officer, and a local teenager have to choose between breaking the law and saving themselves.

Elsewhere: A Play for an Audience of One

February 16, 2021/0 Comments/in 2016, Countries, Drama, Genre, Israel, Year /by Arjun Dhawan

‘Elsewhere’ tells stories of refugees from different times and places; a Syrian refugee, a Sudanese refugee, a Venezuelan refugee and more. The play is meant to be experienced in a one on one setting; each audience member meets each of the refugees for an intimate 7 minutes encounter. A voice guides audience members on their journey through the stories. Each viewer will experience the play in a different order until the group is reunited at the end of the cycle.

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