In my early twenties, I went to speak to an old man near Herodion, not far from Bethlehem. His son, who I met a few days earlier, at one of the first gatherings of theater makers I attended there, told me that his father was a storyteller. I was keen to meet him and hear one of his stories. When I arrived, the old man was alone, sitting in a mostly bare garage-like room on a worn-out orange velvet loveseat. He was wearing loose-fitting white cotton pants with a slightly oversized gray suit jacket, a vest and a white T-shirt beneath. He had a wooden mesbaha, or prayer beads, in his hand and wore another, black with two red beads, as a necklace.
The cement floor, three white-painted walls, the tin ceiling with a few metal bars dangling at the far left corner, looked like the set of a play. He motioned for me to enter. I sat to his left on a plastic white chair. Between us was an unpolished, unpainted, low wooden rectangular table with two cups of tea, an empty unlabeled plastic soda bottle, an old metal skeleton key, and two used wooden tourist handle canes—one dark, the other light. The canes positioned against each other formed a straight line; the handles, hanging on opposite sides, were like unfinished roads, journeys, lives.
We drank tea for close to one hour. He never uttered a word. He invited me into his silence, which to me meant into his most important story. Then, he stood up, walked a few steps toward me, placed his right hand on my right shoulder, and left. I spent years wondering what story he told me that afternoon.
The French actor and director Jean Vilar wrote, “Il s’agit donc de faire une société, après nous ferons peut-être du bon théâtre.” Palestinian society since the 1948 Nakba, or the catastrophe, has been fractured.1 So if we consider Vilar’s statement that only after we’ve built a society, can we perhaps make good theater, is there a Palestinian theater? And who is a Palestinian playwright, theater maker? To understand the trajectory of Palestinian theater we must have a notion of what it is to be Palestinian today.
The editors’ choice of the title Inside/Outside could be understood as Palestinians inside the occupied territories and Gaza, and those in the Diaspora, and at some level that’s what it suggests. It can also raise debate about degrees of Palestinianness. Can one person be more Palestinian than another? Is a theater maker less Palestinian because he isn’t born in Palestine or has never been or does not speak Arabic or writes in a different language? And how about the playwright who lives in the occupied territories but writes in a language other than Arabic, or the one from a refugee camp in Iraq, Lebanon or Syria who writes in Arabic but has never been to Palestine, or a playwright from the Diaspora whether Australia, Canada, the United States or elsewhere, who doesn’t speak Arabic but often returns to the homeland and knows it extensively. Can identity be measured?
The title Inside/Outside, however, implies a more fundamental truth, the tragic fact that Palestinians whether inside the occupied territories or Gaza, or in Israel, or scattered worldwide are all inside/outside whatever parameters their situation dictates—whether it’s physical or national, psychological or emotional. Inside/outside of a checkpoint, the Green Line, Areas A-B-C, or whatever identity card or passport they hold. Gazans aren’t permitted into the West Bank or anywhere. West Bank residents can’t go to the 1948 territories unless given a special permit, and those are rare. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship can’t live in the West Bank, and Palestinians in the Diaspora are refugees and can’t live in Israel, the West Bank or Gaza due to Israeli laws. Even love needs a permit. For instance, generally Jerusalemites are blue card holders so they can’t realistically maintain a love story with a Bethlehemite seven miles away, because if the Jerusalemite moves to Bethlehem he will lose his Jerusalem ID and the Bethlehemite is simply not allowed to live in Jerusalem. Now the wall divides the once sister cities. The visible and invisible divides are endless. Every Palestinian is inside/outside of their particular confines determined by whatever fate they were dealt after the Nakba.2
The six playwrights presented in this anthology reflect the landscape of this fragmented people and despite their multiplicity in accents, cultures and nationalities, they have an unyielding collective voice.3 (I should note here that although this diversity has dynamic qualities, it was imposed by the Nakba, thus is accompanied by trauma.) The biographies of the playwrights represent a piercing testimony of the Palestinian experience. In these pages you will find a playwright from a destroyed village in 1948, now living in a refugee camp in Bethlehem, and one whose family was chased out in 1948, moved to Bir es-Saba in the an-Naqab (Negev), then to the al-Arroub refugee camp between Bethlehem and Hebron. Another playwright born in Berlin who grew up in Ramallah, and one born in Beirut who grew up in Chicago. You will find a Palestinian American and a Palestinian Irish.
When I began writing this introduction, I sought to give a brief panorama of modern Palestinian theater, leading to the work of the playwrights in this volume. To do so, some essential questions needed to be posed. Who are the main playwrights, directors, actors, performers, theaters and troupes; how have plays been and are being produced and funded; and who is the audience? Why have the doors to Palestinian theaters over the past sixty-six years been opened and shut? But the primary question was, would I be able to unseal such information? I was aware that the challenges could be deterring, as Palestinian theater has been relatively undocumented.4 One of the most important records—which most reference—on Palestinian theater in the first half of the twentieth century is Tarikh al-masrah al-Filastini, 1918–1949 (The History of Palestinian Theater 1918–1948, Sharq Briss, 1990) by Nasri al-Jawzi,5 a pioneer and a prolific playwright in the pre-1948 theater movement.6
Palestinian theatrical productions were—and continue to be—mainly created through collective improvisations rather than from written plays.7 A profuse amount of archival records have been lost or destroyed, making it challenging for researchers in the field. However, plays are constantly being unearthed,8 as Palestinians were principally interested in drama as literature.
The question of language—fusha (classical or modern standard Arabic) and ammiya (colloquial)—has been important in modern Arab theater. Well-known scholars Salma Khadra Jayyusi and Roger Allen explain that initially the main challenge that theater makers’ faced when attempting to present translations and adaptions of Western drama was the linguistic medium. They write:
The use of formal written Arabic for dramatic dialogue was markedly inadequate at the turn of the twentieth century, when the Arabic language still carried many pedantic trappings and still retained formal modes of address inherited from older periods . . . The use of the various regional colloquials faced two major problems . . . It introduced a barrier in understanding among various regions themselves, whose colloquials could differ widely . . . The Arab colloquials themselves, during the first decades of the twentieth century, were still unable to express adequately, and with the necessary profundity, the more sophisticated experience of people. It was through the decades . . . that an instinctive thrust toward a middle language was felt and has become feasible for the future.9
ROOTS, THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND BRITISH MANDATE PERIOD
Storytelling in villages or in towns—public squares, fields, salons, coffeehouses, homes—has always existed and been an integral part of Arab culture. This practice was not only a source of entertainment but it also became a space with political dimensions.10 They included stories of voyages and battle, treasons and trials, history and colonialism, grief and love, freedom and passion. These itinerant storytellers or hakawatis encouraged listeners to participate in the story, usually historical or folk.11 The storyteller became a messenger of cultural heritage and tradition, of nation and collective identity. Some popular storytelling traditions include Khayal al-Zill,12 shadow or puppet theater; Sunduq al-Ajab (Box of Wonders or Magic Box), where audiences look at illustrations or colored images while the storyteller entertains them;13 Sha’ir al-Rababa, a singer of poetic folk songs, accompanied by a stringed instrument with one to three strings; religious festivals such as Mawlid al-Nabi (the Prophet’s birthday) and Mawalid (the Saint’s birthday) during Ramadan; the dabke or popular traditional songdance; and zajal, the vernacular form of the muwashshah, an Andalusian Arabic strophic form that seemed to have developed from romance folk poetry and was adopted in the eleventh century in Muslim Spain, and from the twelfth century onward, became popular in the Middle East and North Africa. Oral historian Rosemary Sayigh suggests that oral narratives are essential to the writing of Palestinian history.14
According to the majority of existing narratives, Palestinians did not practice Western-style theater until the 1850s.15 Due to the loss of archives, scholars have come up with several deductions. Reverend Mitri Raheb from the International Center of Bethlehem/Dar Annadwa Addawliyya told me that in certain religious diaries set in Bethlehem, records show that religious-themed plays were performed in the early 1830s.16 In its initial stages, drama was cultivated in missionary schools and had religious orientations.17 Then the vibrant cultural and artists associations, clubs, and literary salons helped create a foundation for the theater movement to grow. For example, the Christian Youth Association established in 187718 in Jerusalem did dramatizations of novels; records from the Russian Teachers Group show theatrical productions in Nazareth in 1896; Hamlet was presented in Gaza in 1911;19 Al-Montada al-Adabi (a literary club) was established in Jerusalem in 1909,20 and produced a play about Salah al-Din;21 and the most illustrious was the ad-Dagdni Literary Salon in Jerusalem.22 Others propose that drama started in 1913 when the Cairo-based Lebanese actor George Abyad and his famed Ramses troupe performed in major Palestinian cities. And some point to later dates, such as 1920, with the establishment in Jerusalem of Jamiyat al-Traki Wa al-Tamtheel al-Arabi (Arabic Society for Acting and Culture), or in 1928 with the establishment of Jamaiyat al-Funoon Wa al-Tamtheel (Organization of Arts and Acting) by al-Jawzi.23 Another force fostering theater at the time was the creation of newspapers such as Al-Zahra (the Flower), founded by the prominent theater maker Jamil al-Bahri, and Al-Karmel, founded by Najib Nassar.24
After the Ottoman Empire (Middle Ages to the early nineteenth century) came the British occupation, circa 1920–1948.25 This period saw increased exchange with the Arab world, especially the pioneering theater world of Cairo and Beirut. In the 1920s, performances by local talents and visiting troupes from Egypt, Syria and Lebanon were expanding in Palestinian cities such as Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Haifa, Jaffa and Nazareth as the interest in theater amplified in venues such as the Al-Ma’arif Café in Jaffa and the Arab Club in Jerusalem. The Rising Arab Economic Association, established in 1922, aided in developing theater on the page by holding playwriting competitions and publishing them in Arabic as well as having them translated into other languages such as English, French, German and Russian. There was a significant increase in performances and troupes26 including traveling ones, namely the Acting Board Troupe of the Youth Association in Bethlehem, which performed throughout Palestine and Jordan. However, many productions were banned by the British Mandate authorities, who claimed that the gatherings were illicit. But the reason was most likely because the plays’ themes explored the increase of Jewish immigrants and Zionist activities, and the threat of Palestine being lost.27 Another challenge to theater makers was funding, as there was no national government, institutions or cultural foundations to sponsor the arts. Despite the obstacles, Palestinian theater persisted.
In 1929, the first Palestinian female actor appeared in the play Majdulin, and the Islamic Sports Association performed the first play about women’s issues, Women’s Aspirations, albeit with an all-male cast. There were also women playwrights, namely Asma Tobi.28 Another playwright that began writing school plays in the 1920s was Mohamed Aza Darouza.29 Parallel to the flourishing of theatrical activities, Aziz Dhomatt from Haifa was gaining recognition in Germany after a critically acclaimed staged performance of his novel Akko Rulers.30 Birzeit College for Girls (today Birzeit University) started producing plays in 1924, and drama and theater were part of their curriculum. Samira Ghandoor who studied with the prominent intellectual, scholar, educator, writer and nationalist Khalil al-Sakakini, lead the drama division.
An overt political consciousness emerged in the productions of 1930s31 as Palestinian nationalism further solidified, in large part in opposition to British colonialism and increased Zionist immigration. In 1936, radio broadcasting was introduced to Palestine. The well-known poet and writer Ibrahim Touqan was in charge of the art and literature programs including a radio drama series at the Palestine Broadcasting Station, one of the most important stations. Some of the key venues and theater makers of the time were Khalil Baydas from Nazareth; Nasri al-Jawzi (apart from the plays he wrote, he is credited in 1945 for being the first Palestinian dramatist to write plays for children; he was forced to flee to Damascus after the Nakba, and en route, lost his earlier plays); Najib Nassar (credited for the first written Palestinian play The Loyalties of the Arabs, published in Al-Karmel);32 Jamil al-Bahri33 (along with his brother Farid) wrote, adapted and directed more than sixteen plays, namely His Brother’s Killer in 1919, The Palace Prisoner in 1920, The Amusing Thief in 1922, The Beloved Homeland in 1923 and The Traitor in 1924; the troupe belonging to Shaykh Muhammad al-Salih’s Rawdat al-Ma’arif al-Wataniyya school in Jerusalem; and Haifa was an important city for theater.
By 1948, Palestinian theater was thriving. The Union of Palestinian Artists and the Union of Theater Troupes34 were created to further develop the theater movement. Both unions stopped being active after the Nakba.
POST-1948 NAKBA
After the catastrophe of 1948, three-quarters of a million Palestinians were dispossessed. Palestinian society and its cultural, literary and artistic communities were torn apart. Palestinians who remained in what became the State of Israel were isolated from the Palestinians in the West Bank, then under Jordanian control, and the Gaza Strip, under Egyptian control, while the rest were forced out and dispersed throughout the region and beyond. It quickly became impossible to regroup the Diaspora and reconstruct that which had been destroyed.35
The Palestinian theater movement in the newly founded Israeli state endured jarring challenges such as restricted artistic freedoms. The communist party gave a significant amount of support to Palestinian cultural production during this period.36 Among the important works in the 1950s are al-Jawzi’s The Evacuation Feast in 1956, Mahmoud Saif al-Din al-Irani’s The Flame and Haroon Hashem Rashad’s The Question (the only play written at that time to make it onto the stage, although not until 1975, at the National Theatre of Cairo).37
Samia Qazmouz al-Bakri, most known for her one-woman performance The Alley38 about pre-1948 Acre, recounts her city and its inhabitants—the Pasha Place and its baths, now an Israeli museum, the Al-Ahl Cinemas, now the Israeli National Bank, and Han al-Umdan, the lane at the center of the city, now with an Israeli company for urban development.39 The Palestinian scholar Rania Jawad says that al-Bakri cited “specific examples to illuminate the ongoing process of eliminating tangible markers of Palestinian life by replacing them with Israeli ones.”40
On the West Bank, in municipalities such as that of Ramallah and Al-Bireh, small theater gatherings started in schools and colleges, and individual initiatives aiming to challenge the difficult circumstances increased. Eventually new troupes were created and presented plays that spoke of their experience. To name a few, the Catholic Action troupe founded in 1951, the Orthodox Club troupe in Beit Sahour, the Acting and Cinematographic troupe in Bethlehem, who performed on the stages of Terra Sancta and Silesian high schools.
In the 1960s, the Palestinian theater movement in Israel became more active as amateur troupes put on productions and more professional41 ones emerged, namely the Nazareth-based Popular Theater in 1964 and Contemporary Theater in 1965, and the Haifa-based Rising Theater in 1967 and the Progressive Theatre in 1967. The play The Door, 1964, by Ghassan Kanafani42—one of most renowned Palestinian writers—was inspired by an Arab fable about the clash between humankind and its divinities and is considered an impactful piece of resistance theater. In the West Bank, plays tended to be performed in the colloquial Palestinian dialect. In 1964 in Gaza City, the drama students of the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Egypt formed a troupe and presented plays on the stage of the Filistin School and the UNRWA Staff Club. But arguably, the most interesting Palestinian theatrical activities in the 1960s were happening in Syria. The Arab Association for Palestinian Theatre was established in Damascus in 196643 to bring awareness through theater about the Palestinian cause and to preserve Palestinian culture. The productions toured Arab countries, and were later funded by the PLO.44
THE 1967 WAR TO THE FIRST INTIFADA
Although by the mid-1960s there were more theater practitioners with knowledge of how to work the stage, the lack of financial support made it difficult to sustain. The situation of Palestinians worsened with the June War, also known as the Six-Day War or the 1967 War, as Israel occupied the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank, Golan Heights and annexed the Old City of Jerusalem, displacing Palestinians further.
In the 1970s, Palestinian national consciousness fortified as a result of years of hindrance and frustration, and Palestinian culture revived.45 Some plays written by illustrious Palestinian writers of the period included Samih al-Qasim’s Qaraqash and Muin Bseiso’s46 The Negroes’ Revolt, Sampson and Delilah and Birds Build Their Nests Between Fingers.
Some suggest that the first Palestinian theater festival took place in Ramallah in 1973, and important theaters and troupes were formed. George Ibrahim’s Al-Kasaba Theatre was established in Jerusalem in 1970. It was initially named Theatre Arts group, then Shawk Theatre in 1984, the Artistic Workshop in 1986, Al-Kasaba Theatre in 1989 and Al-Kasaba Theatre and Cinematheque today. A’ilat Al-Masrah (the Family of Theater) founded in Ramallah in 1970 formed the nucleus for the significant Balalin troupe in 1971.47 Some members of this group included Nadia Mikhail Abboushi, Emile Ashrawi, Mustafa al-Kurd and François Abu Salem. What differentiated this collective was that it included a group of politically minded yet artistically advanced writers, actors, directors, architects and philosophers.
One of their defining productions was the avant-garde experimental play The Darkness—written, developed, directed and produced collectively.48 But members began disagreeing over politics and artistic directions, which brought the group to an end.49 Nonetheless, Balalin had paved the way for the vital force of El-Hakawati Theatre,50 formed in 1977 and led by François Abu Salem.51
Most of El-Hakawati productions were directed by Abu Salem and written collectively through improvisation and experimental methods. El-Hakawati’s approach was a blend of tradition and modernity. It was progressive and sociopolitically conscious, and had profound influence in the Palestinian theater movement. El-Hakawati was successful from the first play they produced, In the Name of the Father, the Mother and the Son in 1977–1978, portraying the life of a Palestinian under oppression. The play also incited debates as it questioned traditions. Other highly acclaimed productions include: Mahjoub, Mahjoub in 1980–1981, which the theater scholar Reuven Snir suggested used similar techniques to those in Woody Allen’s movies and Emile Habibi’s52 1974 novel The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist; A Thousand and One Nights in the Meat Market in 1982; Ali, the Galilean in 1983, which consisted of thirteen miniature dramas about the pressures of having a Palestinian identity in Israel; The Birds, a political allegory about a man looking for refuge in a tree to flee Israeli soldiers; and one of their most praised plays abroad was The Story of the Eye and the Tooth shown in London in 1986.
The Israeli military censored written or staged plays. Snir quotes from the Encyclopedia Palestina53 that out “of twenty-seven dramatic works examined by the committee from 1977 to 1984, only seventeen texts were approved, and even those texts were partially censored.”
Between the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 until the First Intifada or uprising in 1987 against Israeli military occupation, the Palestinian situation further worsened. In 1983, with the help of a Ford Foundation grant as well as other funders, El-Hakawati rented and renovated the Al-Nuzha cinema in Jerusalem and opened their doors in 1984 with four hundred seats in the main hall and one hundred and fifty seats in the small hall. For their first production, they remounted A Thousand and One Nights in the Meat Market or A Thousand and One Nights from the Nights of Stone Thrower (the play had two titles), a contemporary tale of the Palestinian David and Israeli Goliath, which echoed powerfully amongst Palestinians.
Eventually, members began finding new creative platforms leading to the disintegration of El-Hakawati. But it had forever changed the landscape of Palestinian theater by heightening artistic standards and becoming globally recognized.
It is important to mention that there were other troupes and theaters established in the 1970s and 1980s, but most did not last long. Among those which made some impact in the Palestinian theatrical scene were: Sanabel Theatre Company, established in Jerusalem (their production Waiting for Salvation in 1987 was affecting); Dababis, established in Ramallah and Al-Bireh in 1972–1973; the Palestinian Theatre Troupe established in Jerusalem in 1973; Al-Kashkool established in Jerusalem in 1974; and Sunduq al-Ajab in 1975.
POST-OSLO, THE SECOND INTIFADA TO THE PRESENT
From 1988 to the 1993 Oslo Agreement,54 theater suffered because of the political turmoil of the Intifada. The post-Oslo period became defined by restrictions on movement, which hindered theater even further. Palestinians now needed permits to move from one city to the next, which isolated the artistic and cultural communities from each other and from their audiences.
Abu Salem presented the play he wrote with his mother, Jericho, Year Zero, in 1993, a romance about a tourist and a refugee, an exploration of East and West misunderstandings and stereotypes. El-Hakawati became the Palestinian National Theatre. The American actress Jackie Lubeck, Abu Salem’s former wife, eventually began Theatre Day Productions in Gaza, focusing on training actors and theater practitioners to create new initiatives. Iman Aoun and Edward Muallem, former members of El-Hakawati and theater makers since 1977, established Ashtar Theatre Productions and Training in Jerusalem in 1991. They later moved to Ramallah because of closures of West Bank Palestinians to Jerusalem, and opened a branch in Gaza. They also established a theater and drama in education project, which offers intensive theater training programs for local students, master classes for theater professionals and students, and a community-focused Forum Theatre, based on the work of Brazilian theater practitioner Augusto Boal. Forum Theatre as discussed by its founders is a “vital and engaging democracy-building tool.”55 Ashtar, in the years since its inception, has cooperated with local and international theater makers.56 One of their most important productions to date has been The Gaza Monologues, based on monologues written by Gazan children after the war in 2009. The play has been performed by over fifteen hundred youth, and continues to be performed internationally.57
In the West Bank by the mid-1990s onward, there was a continuous increase of artistic output. From new productions to the formation of festivals (the Palestine Festival, Jerusalem Festival, the Sabastia Festival and Ramallah Festival, to name a few), to cultural centers (the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center, the A.M. Qattan Foundation, among others), and more collaborations between Palestinians in Israel, the West Bank, Jordan and the West. And in Israel, the annual Acre Festival began (although it has not been a productive environment in the recent years), and new theatrical venues opened.
One of the important theaters created during the 1990s was Alrowwad Cultural and Theatre Society in Aida refugee camp, founded in 1998, with a special interest in children’s theater. Abusrour describes theatrical work as “beautiful resistance against the ugliness of occupation.”58 Theater to him is a way not only to resist occupation and a vehicle of change, but also a way to stay alive. Alrowwad’s first play was We Are the Children of the Camp in 1999, and it was a collage of stories from the children of Aida refugee camp. It toured the United States in 2005. The play portrays the cruel reality of the occupation, as the children list the villages, towns and cities they came from, then list the camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. It’s hard to imagine peace as you watch the play yet it is explored toward the end. Another important theater institution is the Jenin Freedom Theatre59 in the Jenin refugee camp, which Juliano Mer-Khamis directed until he was murdered on April 4, 2011. The assassination occurred in front of the doors of the theater, while he was in his aged red Citroën, his infant son, Jay, on his lap, and the babysitter beside them. He left a wife pregnant with twins, and his daughter Milay, from a previous relationship.
Mer-Khamis’s mother, Arna Mer-Khamis, and Zacharia Zubeidi founded the Stone Theatre in 1993, on the top floor of Samira Zubeidi’s house (Zacharia’s mother). Both of Mer-Khamis’s parents died of cancer—his Israeli-Jewish mother in 1995, his Palestinian father a few months after. And the theater was destroyed in the 2002 Israeli assault on Jenin. Mer-Khamis returned to Jenin—where nearly all of his former students from the 1990s had been killed—to finish the documentary on his mother, Arna’s Children (released in 2004), and to continue her work. The theater was reopened in 2006, and renamed the Freedom Theatre.
Mer-Khamis believed that “theater makes community.” His legacy continues onstage with initiatives like the Freedom Bus project, an interactive theater which aims to bring “awareness and build alliances throughout occupied Palestine and beyond.” Endorsers of this continuing project include Alice Walker, Slavoj Zizek, Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, John Berger, Peter Brook and Maya Angelou.60 Nabil al-Raee is currently the theater’s artistic director.
A few months after Mer-Khamis’s murder, in Ramallah on October 1, 2011, another force in Palestinian theater was lost when François Abu Salem committed suicide. It was a tremendous loss for the artistic community, and the nonviolent cultural resistance movement. Like many who met him, Mer-Khamis made an impact.
After every interaction with Juliano along the years, he left me with the same memorandum: ask death questions.61 Juliano’s untimely death triggered memories of significant people on my own journey. In 2000, at the start of the Second Intifada, I went to Ramallah to a gathering of artists, writers and dramatists. Mahmoud Darwish and Iman Aoun were among us. I met Mahmoud in my early twenties in Paris. My most vivid moments with him are of us drinking coffee, silent conversations where his metaphors became alive in ways only dreams can. During that trip, the sea was with us every time we met. Perhaps because it was so close yet forbidden to us. Perhaps because water is something we don’t think about when we are abroad, but here it is life. And we are only allowed drops. I had also met Iman before, but that trip forged what would become a long friendship. It was the first time a verse piece I wrote was adapted for the stage. This experimental adaption by Iman gave me a desire to work with theater in a way I had not felt before.
During that trip, although not with us at the gathering, I also saw Abdelfattah Abusrour, or Abed, as he prefers to be called. Being in Bethlehem together (where I come from, and where Abed grew up—more specifically in Aida refugee camp), linked us in ways I am still discovering. It is our conversations on beauty that stay with me most. The way he unfolds it, and inspires children to write words on the wind. As they practice freedom, hope plants itself deeper.
Palestinian theater in the occupied territories has experienced an increase in productions since the end of the Second Intifada in 2005,62 with shows touring internationally, namely at the Royal Flemish Theatre, Abbey Theatre (Dublin), the Young Vic, Bush Theatre and the Royal Court Theatre (London). Some recent productions abroad include 48 Minutes for Palestine, a highly acclaimed international collaboration between British-Nigerian-Danish theater maker Mojisola Adebayo and Ashtar Theatre; and Jerusalem-born, Jaffa-based playwright Amir Nizar Zuabi,63 who has had a number of plays produced abroad such as I Am Yusuf and This is My Brother.64 There are also collaborations such as Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre, founded in 2005 in Palestine and New York City, “which uses art and technology to create performances across disciplines, cultural geographies, and physical borders.”65 Apart from making theater, touring abroad is a way to generate funding and awareness, which can potentially lead to policy change.
Many productions portray the occupation, continued hostility, the loss of homeland, the need to assert Palestinian cultural identity, and the preservation of Palestinian folklore and history. Other plays include historical fable, traditional and experimental, sociopolitical and social realism, surreal and metaphysical, satire and tragicomedy.
Leading theatrical venues in the West Bank today, despite the occupation and funding issues,66 are: Al-Kasaba Theatre and Cinematheque,67 which relocated to Ramallah and is one of the biggest, most important and long-lasting theaters in Palestine (in partnership with the German academy Folkwang University, it has established a drama academy and is the first to offer a bachelor’s degree in performing arts); Ashtar Theatre in Ramallah and Gaza; the Palestinian National Theatre in Jerusalem, mostly a hosting space; the Pocket Theatre founded by Dr. Nabil al-Haggar and Amar Khalil (former member of El-Hakawati, who joined in 1980 when he was sixteen years old); Alrowwad Cultural and Theatre Society; Inad Theater68 and Al-Harah (Raeda Ghazaleh, co-founder and artistic director)69 in Beit Jala; Yes Theatre70 in Hebron which emerged from Jackie Lubeck’s Theatre Day Productions71 based in Gaza (they won a prize in Morocco for best production in 2014); the Jenin Freedom Theatre; and Emad Metwally began Qafilah, a mobile theater in Jerusalem. (He first used a van and is now using a truck.) Leading Palestinian theatrical venues currently in Israel include: the Ensemble Theatre in Nazareth; the Mahmoud Darwish Theatre in Nazareth, mostly a hosting space; Al Midan Theatre in Haifa; Saraya Arab Theatre of Jaffa, which operates under the umbrella of the Jaffa Theatre Arab Hebrew Theatre Center72 in the Old City (since 1998, Jaffa Theatre has housed the Saraya Arab Theatre and the Local Hebrew Theatre, and many well-known actors and playwrights have worked there, namely Mohammed Bakri). Some smaller theaters include Al-Jawwal in Tamra, Al-Niqab in Isifya, Al-Khashaba in Haifa, ShiberHur, Al-Battof in Arraba and Al-Sira.
The Palestinian Theatre League, which was founded in 1989, counted twenty-six to twenty-eight theaters in the West Bank and Gaza in 2009–2010. The numbers are approximately the same today.
The passion and dedication of Palestinian theater makers, despite all odds, is what has kept theaters breathing. All productions faced, and continue to face, challenges from Israeli censorship, continuous disruption or destruction of works, roadblocks, compulsory permits, closures to Jerusalem, actors and writers imprisoned or detained, bulldozed theaters and lack of funds. Funding in the 1970s and 1980s came mostly from individuals, namely volunteers and ticket sales, and in the 1990s, a large portion of the money came from international funders, who more often than not had conflicting agendas with Palestinian theater practitioners.73
The audiences in Palestine from all economic and social standings have always engaged theater makers. Scholar and dramatist Samer al-Saber writes that the audience in every production he has ever “participated in, seen, studied, heard about, or reconstructed, has had a significant talk back session afterwards. And these talk backs last. A half hour is a short one. When Palestinian audiences see a play, they discuss it, challenge it and speak about it with the actors. If the playwright is there, they want to ask him or her questions. Everybody demands the participation of everybody, that’s an essential part of this theatrical front.”74
In 2009, before a PalFest (Palestine Festival of Literature) performance at the Palestinian National Theatre, the Israelis closed it down, as they have been doing for decades, for no reason other than to harass and deter. As everyone walked out of the PNT, I thought of my weekly walk to Hamilton Hall at Columbia University, where I teach, and where Edward Said had his first office. His words on the right to narrate echoed loudly in the streets of Jerusalem, where each day a piece of it is forbidden to Palestinians.
This past summer in Haifa, I read for the first time in the Al Midan Theatre. Although I’ve performed in the occupied territories, I’d never read in pre-1948 Palestine. The experience moved me deeply. And I finally understood the old man’s story: silence is also a language.
Those close to me, who also spend a life on the stage, taught me a version of that language—Iman, that motion is the silence of music; Juliano, that before we can understand existence, we must truly be dedicated to coexistence; Abed, that humility is the way silence hopes; Mahmoud, that freedom is the silent flame in every word.
This past summer, I stood by the sea in Acre. A city I feel deeply connected to, and realized that the old man had also given me the key to enter anywhere I wanted. And although no stage can reproduce the drama of Palestinian lives, we will keep imagining.
Palestinians in the West are steadily more present in all areas of theater whether as writers, directors, producers and/or actors. Their involvement in comedy, drama, and both classical and experimental theater demonstrate their diversity, aesthetically, thematically and structurally. In 2001, the pioneering Arab American theater collective Nibras was established, and paved the way for many theater makers. It was an important, inspiring and energizing experience for those of us who were part of Nibras. Palestinians in the collective included Najla Said,75 who served as artistic director for several years, Afaf Shawwa and Nathalie Handal. (Official members of Nibras included Said, Shawwa, Handal, Lebanese Americans Leila Buck and Omar Koury, Syrian Americans James Asher and Maha Chehlaoui, and Egyptian American Omar Metwally.) For the first time, Arab and Arab American theater makers in New York City—later throughout the U.S. and globally—joined to develop, produce and perform onstage. In 2002, Nibras collaborated with the Palestinian American stand-up comedians Maysoon Zayid and Dean Obeidallah, and later with producer Waleed Zuaiter, to create the Arab-American Comedy Festival in New York City, officially founded in 2003.
In 2005, after numerous readings and productions not related specifically to Palestine, several Nibras members—Buck, Chehlaoui, Handal and Said, along with the Kazbah Project co-founder, Syrian American Rana Kazkaz—brought Acts for Palestine to the Blue Heron Arts Center in New York City. The featured one-act plays included Friday Morning by British Palestinian Razanne Carmey; Between Our Lips by Handal, performed by Palestinian Americans Lameece Issaq and Ramsey Faragallah; Macklubeh by Sami Metwasi; and Pressing Between and Beyond by Soha al-Jurf.
In the spring of 2006, following New York Theatre Workshop’s cancellation of My Name Is Rachel Corrie, NYTW began a series of dialogues with Nibras members Buck, Chehlaoui, Handal, Said and Koury, concerning the complex issues surrounding artistic output from and about Palestine. The two companies discovered a mutual passion for using theater to pose challenging questions and expose points of view that have been obscured or silenced. After a highly successful collaboration to produce two nights of readings for the Public Theater’s “New Work Now!”, NYTW named Nibras a company-in-residence and invited Buck, Handal and Said to join its extended community of affiliate artists, the Usual Suspects.
Nibras’ next project with NYTW was “Aswat: Voices of Palestine,” a two-day mini-festival co-produced with New York University. The lineup included Last Train to Jerusalem by Fuad Abboud; Sharon and My Mother-in-Law by Suad Amiry, adapted by Shawwa; It Happened in a Place Called Palestine by Carmey; Deir Yassin: The Stonecutters by Handal; The Monologist Suffers Her Monologue by Yussef El Guindi; Food and Fadwa by Issaq and Jacob Kader; Souvenir by Metwasi, who was also a member of Al-Harah Theatre in Beit Jala; and Between This Breath and You by Naomi Wallace. El Guindi and Wallace, although not Palestinian, were included because their powerful plays dealt with Palestine in important ways, and we felt their voices were essential. Juliano Mer-Khamis moderated one of the post-show discussions. It was an exhilarating festival showcasing nearly thirty artists connected to Palestine.
As our careers evolved, members of Nibras progressively went on to do other projects. Among the Palestinians, Issaq co-founded Noor Theatre in New York; Said’s play Palestine was produced in New York City, and her memoir Searching for Palestine, based on the play, was published by River-head Books in 2014; Zuaiter starred in several films, and was a producer and actor in the Academy Award–nominated film Omar; and others went on to write plays, produce award-winning shows, and perform nationally and internationally.
Some other Palestinians working in the world stage include Italian Palestinian Omar Elerian, who is associate director at the Bush Theatre in London; Australian Palestinian Samah Sabawi, whose play Tales of a City by the Sea has been received in Australia with great enthusiasm; Palestinian American Tala Manassah and Lebanese American Mona Mansour, who have co-written numerous plays, such as The Letters and After; and the editors of this anthology recently did a reading of their stage adaptation of Kanafani’s novella Returning to Haifa at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.76
In tracing their theatrical journey, we witness how Palestinians have boldly and ingenuously created theater despite their imposed fracturedness. The theater bears witness. Its actors always present, in the faces buried in the ruins, in the imagination, in captivating humor, in the illusions of an old man incapable of preserving what’s left of his innocence, in the names we beg never to pronounce, in the grief that draws maps, maps that create stages and stages that illuminate history with light rather than obscurity. The shadows on Palestinian stages remain most silent when they take voices apart to retell not only what is unbearable but what is possible—acts of justice.
Naomi Wallace says, “History is a study of intimacy or our lack of it, with others. What else is history or politics but the struggle of people to define who they are and what they can and cannot do?” The playwrights presented in this anthology dive into intimacy’s most concealed forms and explore what is most invisible and/or unheeded. These plays are a cosmos of mindscapes, vast and varied in beauty, theme, style and form. From the San Francisco–born Palestinian American playwright Betty Shamieh, we have an intelligent, high-concept and thought-provoking Territories, a play about the unrecorded roles of women in historical events, in this case that of the sister of the legendary Sultan Saladin. Her kidnapping, some argue, caused the Third Crusade. The play, as its title suggests, echoes the never-ending focus on land and the terrain of bodies, and Shamieh expertly delivers razor-sharp feminist insights throughout.
The London-born Palestinian Irish playwright Hannah Khalil returns to 1948 in Plan D. Inspired by the testimonies of Palestinians who endured the Nakba, she writes poignantly about a fictional family faced with the unbearable question: should we stay in our homes and risk our lives, or leave? They have no choice but to leave, and convince themselves that they will return. They never can. “Plan D” refers to the name of the Israeli military operation to expel the Palestinians, and Khalil’s skillful and intense work presents us with the story of one family in its destructive path.
Abusrour, whose father was from the village of Beit Nattif and mother from the village of Zakariyya, both destroyed in 1948, now lives in Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem. He revisits the legendary cult cartoon Handala, created by the famed Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al-Ali, about a ten-year-old boy frozen in time, barefoot, his hands clasped behind his back, ears pointed toward the sun. He’s never seen frontally. He will turn around, when he can return to Palestine. The play is itself a drawing of resistance. But the force of Abusrour’s free interpretation lies in his composition, one that unfolds at various levels, poetically and lyrically, wittily and humorously, as it draws from daily colloquialism.
Dalia Taha’s sparse, original and fast-paced play, Keffiyeh/Made in China, interrogates the role today’s multimedia world plays in creating misconceptions that impact lives in a painfully intimate way. The constant repetitions in the dialogue and the brisk short lines demonstrate the repeated interruptions of daily life in the occupied territories as well as echo the brief lives of the youth who live there. Keffiyeh/Made in China boldly attempts to rescue and reignite a repressed humanity within these interactions.
While Taha was born in Berlin and grew up in Ramallah, Khalidi was born in Beirut and grew up in Chicago. His daring and stirring Tennis in Nablus is part political tragedy, part dark comedy. Khalidi turns his attention to pre-1948 Palestine, taking us to the last days of the Arab Revolt against the British occupation (1936–1939). As death looms in the streets of Palestine, the English play tennis, and the absurdity of the moment delivers the cruelty of history in the most piercing way. The indifference of that moment comes to a sharp presence with this past July’s Gaza War, as the most basic principles of humanity and justice were called into question.
The playwright and actor Imad Farajin’s intense and gripping 603 brings us to the very core of the Israeli justice system.77 As one character, Mosquito, says: “I don’t care if I have to rot in here for a hundred years, I would never stand up for that judge. They occupy us and then dare to judge us.” Through Farajin’s beautifully drawn characters we are reminded in the most distressing way not only of the insanity created by confinement, but also of the unbending will to survive, and the vigor of resistance in its many forms, including acts of imagination and hope:
MOSQUITO: Outside the world is green . . . green. Even though it’s nighttime, I could see the green.
SLAP: The bus door opened and shut.
MOSQUITO: The smell of almond blossom! God, I’ve forgotten what almonds taste like.
SLAP: And the bus door opened and shut.
MOSQUITO: The air had a touch of cold . . . but it was a gentle touch.
SLAP: And the bus door opened and shut.
MOSQUITO: The mosquito shivered inside her matchbox.
SLAP: And the bus door opened and shut.
This past summer, Haifa’s Al Midan Theatre produced the play Taha, based on the poet Taha Muhammad Ali’s life, performed and directed by Amer Hlehel. In Jerusalem, the young aspiring playwright Hussam Ghosheh performed his monologue The Last Barrier, about the increasingly brutal harassment of Jerusalemites, which is meant to make their lives so unbearable they leave the city. To remain in such unconscionable circumstances is their boldest and most powerful act. In Ramallah, Aoun of the Ashtar Theatre spoke to me about the youth production of their Gaza branch. A few days later, the Israeli airstrikes began and resulted in hundreds of dead children. Once again, the theater doors shut. But as is true of the enduring character of this people, the theater doors in Palestine will keep reopening.
Jerusalem and New York
March 2015
1. In January 1948, Palestinian and Zionist fighting escalated and by April, over ten thousand Palestinians, mostly from the North, were forced to flee. On May 14, the British high commissioner left, and a Jewish state was proclaimed. What followed was the extensive displacement of Palestinians. “Two out of every five refugees in the world are Palestinian. At the beginning of 2007, there were approximately seven million Palestinian refugees and four hundred and fifty thousand internally displaced persons (IDPs), representing seventy percent of the entire Palestinian population worldwide (9.8 million). Palestinian refugees and internally displaced Palestinians (IDPs) represent the largest and longest-standing case of forced displacement in the world today.” Refer to Badil Resource Center for more information (http://www.badil.org/en/historical-overview/), and Edward Said, The Question of Palestine (New York: Vintage Books, 1992).
2. The Palestinian theater scholar Rania Jawad in “Ashtar’s Forum Theatre: Writing History in Palestine,” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism (Fall 2008): 115-131, reminds us of Edward Said’s words on the difficulty of representing Palestinians. In After the Last Sky (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), Said writes: “It is a terribly crowded place.” Jawad adds that Said remarked elsewhere that the construction of Palestinians continues to be “conducted both on the ground in Palestine and outside Palestine, as an ideological, informational, and interpretative conflict.” Also, refer to Issam Nassar’s “Reflections on Writing the History of Palestinian Identity,” Palestine-Israel Journal, Volume 8 No. 4 (2001) and Volume 9 No. 1 (2002).
3. The Palestinian experience in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, in refugee camps in the Arab world, and those displaced in countries globally, differs. The diversity of these experiences echo in the plays. For statistics, refer to Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
4. One of the main challenges of writing about Palestinian theater is the lack of resources and studies. Much has been lost, was never archived or recorded, or is extremely difficult to find. Despite the numerous interviews I conducted with Palestinian theater makers, I was unable to confirm a lot of information. Although most recounted similar occurrences, the variations in relation to dates, how a theater groups split up, and so forth, were endless. Some prominent scholars in the field include Hala Kh. Nassar, Reuvin Snir, Masud Hamdan, Faysal Darraj, Samer al-Saber and Rania Jawad. I am grateful to Abdelfattah Abusrour and Samer al-Saber for their time, generosity and guidance while I wrote this introduction.
5. According to Faysal Darraj, with additional material by Fateh Azzam, translated by Christine Henein, in The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, Volume 4, The Arab World, edited by Don Rubin (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), 189, al-Jawzi wrote over a hundred plays. Hala Kh. Nassar in The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, edited by Gabrielle H. Cody and Evert Sprinchorn (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 1031, lists some of the following plays by al-Jawzi: Truth Is Supreme in 1928 (note: Darraj says it was 1927); Leila’s Heart and The Burning Candles in 1930; The Ghosts of the Free in 1935, staged at the YMCA theater in 1935 and in 1936, and the play was banned in the rest of the country due to British censorship; The Wisdom of the Judge; No to the Sale of Land; Palestine, We Shall Not Forget Thee; Loyalty of Friends and Break the Idols! And Father Estefan Yousef from Nazareth was another important dramatist.
6. Samer al-Saber points out that al-Jawzi wrote the bibliographical account from memory twenty or so years later, thus inevitably some discrepancies exist. He tells me: “The problem with so many attempts to write about Palestinian theater has to do with the desire to establish the narrative—to say what is/was! But the job of establishing the narrative is nearly impossible at the moment because the topic is far too big and there hasn’t been enough original research with indigenous sensibilities on the ground. Even most theater artists don’t realize how big it is. In interviews, you get a number of floating narratives, spoken with authority because these narratives tend to be experiential or transmitted by word of mouth. Yet, these experiences require not only a gatherer, an interpreter, or a narrator, but also an historian and ethnographer. Everything gets mixed up. Some will claim to have it, but in truth, none of us do. These full narratives can only emerge and be established after so many scholars have gone through the grunt work, produced studies, published them, then repeated the task again and again and again. Eventually, we can have the one thousand different narratives that may permit us to write the seamless/synthetic factual summary we wish to produce. The layers of Palestine are mind-blowing.”
7. On contemporary modes of Palestinian theater refer to Reuvin Snir’s “The Palestinian Hakawati Theatre: A Brief History,” Colors of Enchantment: Theatre, Dance, Music and the Visual Arts in the Middle East, edited by Sherifa Zuhur (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2001). It was first published in Arab Studies Quarterly (6:2/7:1): 57-71, and slightly modified for Zuhur’s anthology. He writes: “Due to a lack of resources and out of an experimental incentive, the act of play writing, and devising plots, characters, and dialogues became a collective undertaking by the actors themselves in rehearsals and workshops, and was based largely upon improvisation and interaction within the troupe. In addition to the influence of the traditional theatrical Arab tradition, Western theatrical strategies were merged with the Arab hakawati, Ariane Mnouchkine and her famous Théâtre de Soleil, Jérôme Savary’s Grand Magic Circus Théâtre, commedia dell’arte, as well as American slapstick, all inspired Palestinian dramatists. Critics have compared this amalgam to Gabriel García Márquez brand of ‘magic realism,’ and sometimes to Brechtian expressionism.”
8. The exact number of plays and productions in modern Palestinian theater remains unknown.
9. Refer to the preface by Salma Khadra Jayyusi and Roger Allen, editors, in Modern Arabic Drama: An Anthology (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), vii-viii. For more on modern Arabic drama, refer to the introduction by M.M. Badawi in the same anthology. For information on short plays, refer to Salma Khadra Jayysui’s Short Arabic Plays: An Anthology (Northampton, MA: Interlink 2003).
10. “In Iraq it is known as al-muhaddiõ, in Morocco fdawi, in Algeria al-qawwal, in Turkey al-makla.” Hala Kh. Nassar, “The Invocation of Lost Places,” The Open Page (2002).
11. If interested in traditional Palestinian folktales refer to Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana, editors, Speak Bird, Speak Again (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989) and Jamal Sleem Nuweihed, Abu Jmeel’s Daughter and Other Stories: Arab Folk Tales from Palestine and Lebanon (Northampton, MA: Interlink, 2002).
12. Refer to Nassar, The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, 1030.
13. Nassar, in “The Invocation of Lost Places,” writes that: “According to Pellat two distinguished forms of storytelling exist in the Arab world: ‘The tales of the supernatural, the ancient asmar, which correspond to the German Hausmärchen, are told by women, especially old women, while the heroic tales and historical legends are the province of men.’ Pellat, Hikaya, Encyclopaedia of Islam.” For more on storytellers in the Muslim world, refer to Snir’s “The Palestinian Hakawati Theatre: A Brief History,” 113, footnote 73.
14. Rosemary Sayigh, “Women’s Nakba Stories,” Nakba, 137, and “Palestinian Camp Women as Tellers of History,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Volume 27 No. 2.
15. According to Darraj, at the time “theater in the European sense still had a limited audience, appealing as it did primarily to the educated, the cultured and the wealthy.” The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, 189. Jawad quotes in “Saadallah Wannous in Palestine: On and Offstage Performances and Pedagogies,” Doomed by Hope: Essays on Arab Theatre, edited by Eyad Houssami, Masrah Ensemble (London: Pluto Press, 2012), 35, that “researchers agree that the birth of modern Arab theater was 1847 in Syria.”
16. Also refer to “The Theatre in Palestine,” Dramaturgie Arabe Contemporaine/Contemporary Arab Dramaturgy: http://www.arab-dramaturgy.eu/index/.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=43:le-theatre-en-palestine&catid=20&Itemid=185&lang=en/ (accessed March 30, 2015).
17. These missionary schools established in the mid-nineteenth century whether French, English, German, American, Russian or Italian, exposed children to a different culture and language.
18. Other researchers say it was established in 1911.
19. Refer to “The Theatre in Palestine,” Dramaturgie Arabe Contemporaine/Contemporary Arab Dramaturgy: http://www.arabdramaturgy.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=20&Itemid=137&lang=en/ (accessed March 30, 2015).
20. Darraj, The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, 187.
21. Michael R. Fischbach, “Performing Arts,” Encyclopedia of the Palestinians, edited by Philip Mater (2005), 391, wrote that the play was produced in 1915. Betty Shamieh’s play Territories, included in this anthology, is about the sister of Saladin.
22. Nassar, The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, 1031.
23. Darraj, The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, 187.
24. In various conversations with Iman Aoun, 2000–2014, she spoke about the numerous journals and newspapers that covered performances such as the magazine Al-Zahra, where one of al-Bahri’s verse plays was published. Aoun spoke of the extraordinary coverage George Abyad received. According to Darraj, the Abyad’s troupe performed Andalusian Song and Louis the Eleventh. In my 2014 conversation with Nassar, she said there were more than fifteen magazines like Al-Zahra, based mostly in Haifa or Jerusalem, and mentioned Khalil Beidas’s Majallat al-Nafaees al-Asreyah.
25. For culture and arts during the Ottoman Empire, read Rashid Khalidi’s Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).
26. Darraj, The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, 188, lists the following: Youth Orthodox Club in Jaffa, the Literary Club in Nazareth, Orthodox Club in Gaza and the Islamic Cultural Club in Jerusalem.
27. Nassar, The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, 1031, also says that “the British Mandate . . . issued various restrictive and oppressive rules and laws concerning every aspect of Palestinian daily life: print, publication, distribution of newspapers, transfer of goods, establishing clubs and association, opening shops or libraries.”
28. Aoun spoke about women and theater in our conversation in Ramallah in 2000. She mentioned Najwa Qawar and Tobi’s plays included Women and Secrets, Endurance and Happy Denouement, The Origins of the Christmas Tree, among others. But I was unable to find more information about these women and their plays.
29. Darraj, The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, 188, lists some of Darouza’s plays (1887–1984): Wufood al-Norman al-Ashra (The Ten Norman Emissaries), Akher Mulook Bani Serag (The East Kings of Serag’s Children), Saqr Kuraish (Kuraish’s Eagle) and al-Fallah Wa al-Simsar (The Farmer and the Broker).
30. According to conversations with Iman Aoun.
31. Mattityahu Peled, “Annals of Doom, Palestinian Literature 1917–1948,” Arabica, Volume 29 No. 2 (1982): 141-183.
32. Nassar, The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, 1031.
33. Many agree that al-Bahri is the most important pre-1948 playwright.
34. Al-Jawzi, The History of Palestinian Theater 1918–1948, 32. And according to Darraj, The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, 196: “Masrah Al Ghorbal, a small theater group in Shafa Amru, Galilee, founded in 1977, pioneered the establishment of Palestine’s first Arabic Theatrical Union in 1983. This union has played a positive role in the coordination of efforts by all who care about the theater.”
35. Snir has done a substantial amount of research on Palestinian theater between 1948–1967. Refer to his website for list of books and articles: http://arabic.haifa.ac.il/staff/rsnir.html/. Snir notes in “The Palestinian Hakawati Theatre: A Brief History,” 107, that “a unified Palestinian culture was split and for almost twenty years there were almost no direct connections between Palestinian authors in Israel and those in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, or in exile.”
36. According to a conversation with al-Saber, 2015.
37. Refer to Darraj, The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, 189, who also mentions Ibrahim Mata Ali’s The Awakening of Conscience and The Calm Angel.
38. For more on the play, refer to Nassar, “Stories from under Occupation: Performing the Palestinian Experience,” Theatre Journal, Volume 58 No. 1 (March 2006).
39. Refer to Nassar, “Stories from under Occupation: Performing the Palestinian Experience.”
40. Jawad, “Ashtar’s Forum Theatre: Writing History in Palestine,” 118.
41. In a conversation with al-Saber, he noted that the idea of professionalization does not apply to the recent history of Palestinian theater due to its emergence under the extreme conditions of occupation and statelessness.
42. Ghassan Kanafani (1936–1972) was a dramatist, novelist, and short story writer, born in Acre. Some of his most celebrated books include Men in the Sun and All that’s Left of You. His other plays include The Prophet and the Hat, and the radio play A Bridge to Eternity.
43. Darraj, The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, 192. But Nassar says it was established in 1964 in The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, 1032.
44. Also known as the Fatah Theatre. It was composed of artists from Palestine, Syria and Iraq. They were especially active in 1968 and 1969. Darraj, The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, 192.
45. Nassar writes: “The October War in 1973 was significant, not only in terms of the inter-Palestinian process but also as a boost to Palestinian morale.” The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, 1033.
46. Muin Bseiso (1927–1984) was born in Gaza, and is one of the most important Palestinian dramatists. The Negroes’ Revolt, first performed in Cairo in 1970, relates the Palestinian tragedy to that of the Blacks and Native Americans; Sampson and Delilah was performed at the Tawfiq al-Hakim Theatre in Cairo in 1971; Birds Build Their Nests Between Fingers was performed at the Arab Theatre Festival in Rabat in 1973; The Tragedy of Guevera; The Trial of the Book of Kalela and Dimna; and The Play Within a Play. He was also a poet and nonfiction writers. His well-known memoirs include Gaza Memoirs and Palestinians Notebooks.
47. Reuven Snir’s Palestinian Theatre, Literaturen im Kontext, Volume 20 (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2005), is a survey of major works, theater makers and troupes within an artistic, cultural and historical context. The study includes an in-depth investigation of the activities of two major Palestinian troupes, Balalin and El-Hakawati, because of the vital effect these troupes have had on Palestinian theater.
48. Other productions of note included A Slice of Life, The Weather Forecast, The Emperor’s Cloak, The Treasure, The Cripple and the Walnut Tree and Come Let Me Talk To You My Friend.
49. Darraj, The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, 193, writes that the company split in 1974, and that year Abu Salem founded a new troupe and called it Bila-Leen, a play on words. The new group staged three productions and folded in 1975. In 1976, Abu Salem tried to create the Magic Lantern with al-Kurd as its star but troupe lasted only four shows.
50. Refer to Snir, “The Palestinian Hakawati Theatre: A Brief History.”
51. For in depth information on El-Hakawati refer to Snir, Nassar and Jawad’s “François Abu Salem,” Jadaliyya (October 20, 2011).
52. Emile Habibi was born in 1921 in Galilee and died in 1996 in Nazareth. He is considered is one of the most important Palestinian novelists. Many say his best play was Dwarf Son of a Contemptible Dwarf, 1980. For more on Palestinian literature refer to Salma Khadra Jayyusi’s Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992).
53. Refer to Encyclopedia Palestina, Volume 4 (1990), 218.
54. For more on the Oslo Accords refer to PBS’s “Shattered Dreams of Peace”: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/oslo/negotiations/; Edward Said’s “The Morning After,” London Review of Books, Volume 15 No. 20 (October 21, 1993): http://www.lrb.co.uk/v15/n20/edward-said/the-morning-after/; as well as Said’s The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After (New York: Vintage Books, 2001).
55. Refer to Ashtar Theatre’s official website: http://www.ashtar-theatre.org/about.html/.
56. For more on Ashtar Forum Theatre’s successful production Abu Shaker’s Affairs, refer to Jawad’s “Ashtar’s Forum Theatre: Writing History in Palestine.”
57. For the history and productions of The Gaza Monologues, refer to Rania Jawad’s “Aren’t We Human? Normalizing Palestinian Performances,” Arab Studies Journal, Volume 22 No. 1 (Spring 2014): 28-45.
58. For more on Abusrour refer to: http://voicesacrossthedivide.com/documentary/interview_abusrour.pdf/; http://www.progressive.org/news/2012/02/174886/beautiful-acts-resistance/; http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/02/beautiful-acts-of-resistance-in-palestine/.
59. Refer to the Freedom Theatre’s official website: http://www.thefreedomtheatre.org/. Also, refer to Samer al-Saber’s Alice in Dangerland: A Re-Imagined Revolution in Jenin’s Freedom Theatre in CounterPunch (February 4, 2011) for a description of one of Jenin Freedom Theatre’s daring productions. Other interesting essays on theater and politics: al-Saber’s “A Theatrical AWDA: Palestine, Sahmalah, Refugees, and Going Home,” on the making of the 1998 theatrical event Sahmalah, and Jawad’s “Staging Resistance in Bil’in: The Performance of Violence in a Palestinian Village,” TDR: The Drama Review, Volume 55 No. 4 (Winter 2011, T212). And for Jawad’s thought-provoking account of her experience teaching The Elephant, the King of All Time to Palestinian students during the recent Arab revolts, refer to “Saadallah Wannous in Palestine: On and Offstage Performances and Pedagogies.”
60. Refer to http://www.thefreedomtheatre.org/what-we-do/theatre/freedom-bus/.
61. Refer to “This” by Nathalie Handal, dedicated Juliano Mer-Khamis: http://wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/this/.
62. Refer to al-Saber’s “Arabic Facts in Palestine: Clashing Hybridities in Transnational Cultural Production,” Forum: Arabic Facts in Palestine (2014): 386-398. He narrates his experience on a production he worked on, and also discusses why some plays don’t make it to Palestine, reasons that stem from political to linguistic and translations challenges.
63. When I asked Zuabi why he writes in English he told me: “I write in English because it’s not mine and I feel free to mess around with it. Arabic is such a complicated language, with such richness, I often feel it lacks a sense of urgency. Also, I think in Arabic and write in English—this doesn’t always make sense but when it does, it feels very true to me.” Zuabi’s play I Am Yusuf and This is My Brother was produced by ShiberHur (http://shiberhur.org/), an independent Palestinian theater company based in Haifa. It also toured all over Palestine, and was produced in London at the Young Vic.
64. For more on Amir Nizar Zuabi, refer to Mustafa Khalili, Laurence Topham, Andrew Dickson and Michael Tait, “Theatre in the Shadow of the Palestinian Nakba” on theguardian.com (February 5, 2010): http://www.theguardian.com/stage/video/2010/feb/05/theatre-palestinian-nakba/.
65. Refer to Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre’s official website: http://ysdt.org/.
66. Funding continues to be challenging, and troupes that tour in the West try to garner international collaboration and raise funds while abroad.
67. Al-Kasaba’s many productions include the bilingual Arabic-Hebrew production of Romeo and Juliet, that also toured Europe; Alive from Palestine: Stories Under Occupation; Smile, You are Palestinian; The Wall; and Cell 76.
68. Refer Inad Theater’s official website: www.inadtheater.net/.
69. Refer to Al-Harah’s official website: www.alharah.org/.
70. Refer to Yes Theatre’s official website: www.yestheatre.org/.
71. Refer to Theatre Day Productions official website: www.theatreday.org/.
72. Amir Nizar Zuabi told me that since he became the artistic director the two theaters (Arab and Hebrew) have separated, and no longer act under one umbrella. He said: “For years this theater had not been dedicated to serving the Palestinian minority but was busy trying to create a false notion of coexistence so now it’s just a theater in Arabic trying to make good art.”
73. Samer al-Saber and Yana Taylor, “Reflecting on Palestinian Theatre: A Resilient Theatre of Resistance,” Performance Paradigm 10 (2014): 96-97.
74. Al-Saber and Taylor, “Reflecting on Palestinian Theatre: A Resilient Theatre of Resistance,” 95.
75. I am particularly grateful to Leila Buck, Najla Said and Rana Kazkaz for years of theatrical collaboration. I would also like to thank Miriam Said for her continuous support.
76. I wanted to mention the start of new journal Arab Stages, “devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theater and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora.” Refer to Arab Stages official site: http://arabstages.org/about/.
77. An estimated seven hundred and fifty thousand Palestinians have been imprisoned by Israel since 1967. Palestinian Prisoners’ Day is on April 17. Despite a series of hunger strikes launched by prisoners, most recently on April 24, 2014, which stopped after sixty-three days after supposedly reaching a deal with Israeli prison authorities, not much has changed for these prisoners. The massive Israeli military airstrikes on Gaza became not long afterward.