The floor is black, covered in sponges that absorb light and dampen noises. Then bodies of flesh and blood, women, enter. They are crying. Their white tears are tears of milk, the same milk they would have given their children, had they not been lost. Then bodies made of rags, medical dummies examined and turned into clay, are piled up on the stage. Death and life are everywhere. In this new opus, the young Palestinian director talks about our world like a modern tragedy in which the disaster that strikes the bodies of women is visible, palpable, frightening. Women who, to survive, turn what surrounds and touches them into a landscape of incandescent beauty. They have the ancient power to transform the unspeakable. With all the power of ellipsis, this canonical, immersive, and empathetic tragedy shifts from black to white. With astonishing acuity, it reminds us that Bashar Murkus’s talent resides in his formidable ability to unfold a poetic and universal language as visual as it is sensual. A rare talent indeed.
With: Firielle Al Jubeh, Eddie Daw, Samera Kadry, Shaden Kanboura, Salwa Nakkara, Reem Talhami, Samaa Wakem
Conception and direction: Bashar Murkus
Dramaturgy: Khulood Basel
Music: Raymond Haddad
Set design and costumes: Majdala Khoury
Lights: Muaz Aljubeh
Accessories: Khaled Muhtaseb
Assistant direction: Abed Aljubeh
Diffusion: as is presenting arts
Production: Khashabi Theatre (Haïfa), Khulood Basel 2022
Co-production Festival d’Avignon, Théâtre des 13 vents Centre dramatique national de Montpellier, Théâtre de Liège, Romaeuropa Festival, Palestinian National Theatre El Hakawati (Jerusalem), Culture Resource, A. M. Qattan Foundation Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Moussem Nomadic Arts Centre (Brussels)
The floor is black, covered in sponges that absorb light and dampen noises. Then bodies of flesh and blood, women, enter. They are crying. Their white tears are tears of milk, the same milk they would have given their children, had they not been lost. Then bodies made of rags, medical dummies examined and turned into clay, are piled up on the stage. Death and life are everywhere. In this new opus, the young Palestinian director talks about our world like a modern tragedy in which the disaster that strikes the bodies of women is visible, palpable, frightening. Women who, to survive, turn what surrounds and touches them into a landscape of incandescent beauty. They have the ancient power to transform the unspeakable. With all the power of ellipsis, this canonical, immersive, and empathetic tragedy shifts from black to white. With astonishing acuity, it reminds us that Bashar Murkus’s talent resides in his formidable ability to unfold a poetic and universal language as visual as it is sensual. A rare talent indeed.
