ALIVE FROM PALESTINE. To 31 July.

London

ALIVE FROM PALESTINE: STORIES UNDER OCCUPATION

Al-Kasaba Theatre at the Young Vic To 31 July 2002
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat 4pm
Runs 1hr 15min No interval

TICKETS 020 7928 6363
boxoffice@youngvic.org
Review Timothy Ramsden 22 July

Swift, economically told, visually spare yet telling stories go to the tragic, human heart of Palestinian existence today.You read a lot of rubbish in the papers; it can get on top of you. So, what things must be like for Palestinians is well-expressed in this story chain as performers emerge from heaps of screwed-up yesterday's news. Yet the stories they tell (there's remarkably little apparent acting, so concentrated is the short evening) go far beyond realistic reportage. Updated since its LIFT '01 visit to the Royal Court, the production proves a stage picture can be worth a thousand printed words.

A school class's word game is silenced when someone calls out 'nakba' – 'catastrophe'; the word used for Israel's 1948 occupation of Palestine. It's history's full-stop to any activity, any joy. But this is not aggro-propaganda. Their implications unavoidably enmesh with politics, yet these stories focus on human experience.

They may be bitterly comic – a Palestinian 'phones his relatives in London, giving re-assuring answers as disasters multiply. Gunfire their end? – better watch out, such violence around. No, it's his own end – no problem, all's well.

Often, there's a surreal, fantastic core, arising from a world where people try to live normally in violent times. The problem of passing a closed checkpoint becomes too much for a man and woman, leading to a wild fantasy of tunnelling round the world – only to arrive back and realise the last bridge is closed. Yet the release of inventive imagination has been a moment's release from a wearying, irritating existence – one, also, where tin, used for everything from toys to houses, becomes hateful for beings the only available metal.

Who Killed Abed Al Hassam? mixes traditional, anecdotal puzzle style with the modern political-military situation. Lines of prisoners stand in the baking sun, none confessing which of them is the terrorist/resistance leader. Then a loving father gives a drink to his son, identifying him: love, kindness are fatal. But who was responsible for the death?

A musician's search for himself shows that even identity becomes problematic in such a world. But each story (there are fifteen) makes its point; alongside the documentary film Promises this is the most direct route to the heart of the Palestinian experience I've come across.

Performed by:
Hassam Abu Eisheh
Khalifa Natour
Georgina Asfour
Imad Far'jeen
Mahmoud Awad
Kamel Al Basha

Director/Designer: Amir Nizar Zuabi
Lighting: Mu'az Al-Ju'beh

2002-07-24 10:59:32