A young woman is recording the testimonies of some fellow Syrians who were detained during the current uprising of the country. Read more …
She finds that her position behind the camera is more ambiguous than she thought. As she struggles to capture the revolution she finds herself in increasing danger and this clear mission soon changes to become a devastating one. Which lines can she safely cross? The text is a mixture of true and fictional stories. An urgent and important new play direct from the Syrian revolution.
What the end game in Syria will be is anyone's guess. Until then it's important that playwrights such as Al Attar are allowed a voice to pay testimony to what has gone on so far.
Great theatre will, at some point, emerge from the Arab Spring. This is not it. As rough and raw as a piece about Syria would have to be in the face of unfolding events, Mohammed Al Attar’s patchwork of real people’s experiences of detention is also clunky, unengaging and under-rehearsed.
Al Attar produces a rough-hewn but profound and haunting play about the many forms of damage inflicted by a regime that survives by a creating a climate of corrosive terror and mistrust; about the struggle to report without manipulation, to give testimony that does not evade difficult truths, to use the media as force for good rather than evil, and to carry on what seems like an impossible struggle, without either foolish hope, or the ultimate betrayal of despair.
Director Catrin Evans delivers a taught production that takes over one side of the Traverse bar. Alia Alzougbi convincingly charts Noura’s increasing questioning of her own beliefs, and her three interviewees – played by Umar Ahmed, Lucy Hollis and Gerry McLaughlin – give strong, sharply differentiated performances.
Mohammed Al Attar: The road from Damascus
A Play, a Pie and a Pint, Glasgow from Monday April 16, 2012, until Saturday April 21, 2012. More info: http://playpiepint.com
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh from Tuesday April 24, 2012, until Saturday April 28, 2012. More info: www.traverse.co.uk