The Final Month of the Fifth Year

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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.

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Under the Castle

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Mei and Po, two ugly, monster-like laundry women living in the basement of Macbeth’s castle, are the only ones who remember what Macbeth’s tragic story was. In an uncertain time after their Lord’s death and after all the awful things they witnessed, these two on stage with all their deformed, abject bodies start to tell and restructure this well-known story. They are both storytellers while they are enacting several characters from the story: narration and acting intertwine together and accompanied by a feminist dramaturgy and grotesque aesthetics. While the tragedy turns into a political burlesque consisting of the discourse of otherness, all the implications belonging to this idea range from gender, sex, ugliness to body, flesh, blood, and death takes place on stage. The set is composed of the laundry sheets that are used as proscenium arch and curtain, where they have been cleaning up all the bloody stains under the Macbeth’s castle, or in other words, all-pervading shambles in the history of ‘man’kind.

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Barefoot, Naked, Heart in His Hand

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‘Barefoot, Naked, Heart in His Hand’ is based on a tragic incident that happened in Germany in 1993. A group of young neo-Nazi men set the apartment of a Turkish immigrant family on fire. In the fire, five members of the family perish, and the father and a little son survive. The play is narrated from the point of view of Ali, the father of the family, who survived the fire but stays in a mental hospital. To turn this catastrophe into a play, instead of writing a drama full of pity and tears, Jalali chooses the framework of tragicomedy which grants a dynamic rhythm to the monologue, that, alongside the alienation effect produced, makes the audience experience the bitterness and ugliness of the misfortune with an alert mind. Compactness is another characteristic of Jalali’s style which affects all parts of the play including the narrative, acting, stage design, and music. Choosing the form of monologue performed only by a single actor is evidence of this, which results in the play’s richness and complexity. ‘Barefoot, Naked, Heart in His Hand’ is compact but rich, simple but complicated, and comic but tragic.

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Launcher 5

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Launcher 5 is a hard-hitting report of the aftermath of three mysterious murders that have taken place at a military garrison’s launcher number 5. The play takes place in the inspection office of a garrison, where the inspector performs a long and complicated process of interrogation to discover the culprit. Launcher 5 pioneers the use of foregrounding a sexual crime committed in garrisons, which nobody dares refer to publicly. Military service is generally celebrated as a holy symbol that manifests young men’s duty to their country, but Launcher 5 desacralizes it and implies an urgent need for reevaluation and reform. Launcher 5 presents military service as imprisonment that can cause severe psychological issues in young men. However, the small world of the garrison can be seen as a metaphor for a social system in which too much repression is destructive rather than constructive. It can kill people’s spirits, resulting in outbursts of crime and violence. Launcher 5 gives a straightforward picture of reality and does not have any reservations against speaking the truth. This genuine honesty, along with brilliant acting, an outstanding script containing an intelligent mixture of tears, laughs, mystery, and violence, causes the spectators to trust the play and enjoy it.

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The Final Month of the Fifth Year

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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.

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Dushka

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Dushka is a dynamic play performed by five Syrian actresses, which tries to showcase the mechanisms of building dictatorships- the dictatorship of the ruler, the father, money, and every other controlling authority- and how we become their victim, because we did not resist it from the very beginning of its formation, and we have stood up to those who are trying to resist it.

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Love, Bombs, and Apples

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A Palestinian actor learns there’s more to English girls than pure sex appeal. A Pakistani-born terror suspect figures out what’s wrong with his first novel. A British youth suspects all is not what it seems with his object of desire. A New Yorker asks his girlfriend for a sexual favor at the worst possible time. Love, Bombs & Apples is the comic tale of four men, each from different parts of the globe, all experiencing a moment of revelation.

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We Swim, We Talk, We Go to War

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While trying to navigate the currents of the Pacific, an Arab-American woman and her nephew, who has enlisted in the military, dive into the murky waters of family, identity, and politics. Adventurous and playful, We Swim takes the form of a literal conversation on stage, and expands into a nuanced dialogue about what it means to be American, Arab, and Arab-American at our current moment in time.The play offers its audience an opportunity to examine America’s relationship with its military, as well as its growing Middle Eastern immigrant population. It blurs the lines between “us” and “them,” and presents a provocative exploration of the tragic and indelible ripples of war.

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Elsewhere: A Play for an Audience of One

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‘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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Anbara

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The play begins the day of Anbara’s veiling ceremony at the age of ten and ends the day she finally revolts against the veil in 1927 at the age of 30. The play is a historical docu-drama that tackles Anbara’s life and the stages of her maturity. At the young age of 16, Anbara took an active part in establishing one of the first women’s organization in Lebanon and possibly in the Arab World. By the age of 18 she was defying her family by meeting with her fiancé in secret. As an activist, Anbara and her contemporaries realized early on that women must have a role equal to that of men in their nationalist struggle. To play her part, she devoted herself to promoting women’s rights and women’s education.

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