Theatre in times of war

Parshathy J. Nath watches a Lebanese troupe perform at an International Theatre Festival of Kerala and comes away moved

January 30, 2015 06:53 pm | Updated 06:53 pm IST

Theatre of resistance: Zoukak Theatre Company performing Lucena/ Obedience Training Photo: O.Ajithkumar

Theatre of resistance: Zoukak Theatre Company performing Lucena/ Obedience Training Photo: O.Ajithkumar

“Monster Monster go to sleep...Lay your head and count your sheep…” Actors, smeared in sweat and blood, sing these lines like a nursery rhyme. Each of them has a baby on his lap. The Zoukak troupe does not tell us whose children they are. They could be the children of parents lost in wars or abandoned in the streets. Meanwhile in the backdrop, a lady cop tortures a rebel and a masked man holds a gun to shoot.

The audience sat quite horrified as they watched I hate theatre and I love pornography by the Lebanese troupe, Zoukak Theatre Company, staged at the recently held International Theatre Festival of Kerala, Trichur.

The troupe, which was founded by students from Lebanese University in 2006, is the only theatre company in Lebanon. The civil war between 1975 and the late 90s, wiped out theatre culture in the country, entirely. But, theatre became a way of life for them, an instrument to question the war and religious censorship, they say. “For us practising theatre itself is a political act,” says Omar Abi Azar, the founding member and director. “We do not come from a strong theatre tradition like the one in India. Our government does not fund theatre activities.”

Politics for the Zoukak team is personal. Reality and fiction overlap in their lives, says Lamia Abi Azar, one of the founders. “The apartment where we rehearse can be bombed any moment. Once when we were rehearsing, an actor was talking to his mom on the phone and she told him about an explosion. We had assumed it was a part of his improvisation. Later we discovered it was for real.”

Even media visuals seep into their plays. For instance, in Death Comes Through Your Eyes, two women enacted the visuals of war photographs that captured deaths. The director and actor, Maya, says deaths have become so familiar to us that we do not take them seriously anymore. “We wanted people to experience the fragility of death and become more responsible about it.” The middle-class insensitivity to violence was captured through a scene where one lady is in the throes of death while the others dined and wined.

A lot of research and reading goes into each of their plays. Classics are boldly adapted and recreated with contemporary Lebanon in mind. For instance, their opening play, called Lucena/ Obedience Training, based on Henrik Ibsen’s Emperor and Galilean was a subversive take on sectarian violence in Lebanon. The protagonist of the black comedy was a dictatorial director who gets killed by a rebellious actor in his team. The director represents the bigoted leaders and the actors civilians who questioned the blind laws, says Junaid Sarieddeen, the director.

“In Lebanon, there are around 18 religious sects and each sect has two leaders. And all of them war with each other. My challenge was to transform the classic into a play seeped in the political reality of Lebanon.”

However, their work does not ridicule faith or religion, clarifies Hashim, a young actor. “We try to question or juxtapose ironies. We come from a violent context. If we are irresponsible about our art, we can trigger a war.” By calling international artists home and hosting theatre fests, they have been trying to bring alive a culture for theatre in the country. They tour around villages with their plays too. “We get a good feedback. The audience tells us they too want the violence and war to end one day,” says Hashim.

However, the Lebanese society still frowns upon anyone who takes theatre as their livelihood. Lamia says she tries to avoid telling her neighbours that she is an actress. “It is seen as a trade that does not bring money like media or cinema.” And, Maya had to fight with her parents to pursue theatre. “Studying theatre is not perceived as education. And, we travel a lot. For my family, that was a problem.” And there is a lack of public spaces in the city, says Omar. “People are either hooked to TV, cinema or MC Donald’s. Even the beaches are privatised.” But that does not stop them from practising theatre. For Omar, who was gripped by a passion for stage at the age of 12, theatre is a thinking operation in itself. “Lucena/ Obedience Training criticises the relation to ideas in the book and the people who blindly follow them. The book could be the Quran, an ad commercial or even a diet book telling you 67 ways to get into shape. We try to juxtapose contradicting realities and point out the incoherence. Theatre for us is a way of looking at reality.”

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