2 3 Inside/Outside: Six Plays from Palestine and the Diaspora is copyright © 2015 by Theatre Communications Group Introduction is copyright © 2015 by Nathalie Handal Inside/Outside: Six Plays from Palestine and the Diaspora is published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc., 520 8th Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10018-4156 All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this material, being fully protected under the Copyright Laws of the United States of America and all other countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions, is subject to a royalty. All rights, including but not limited to, professional, amateur, recording, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are expressly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed on the question of readings and all uses of this book by educational institutions, permission for which must be secured from the authors’ agents. Epigraph: “Mahmoud Darwish: Hope as Home in the Eye of the Storm,” Ashwani Saith, ISIM Review 15 (Spring 2005), 29. 4 Due to space constraints, copyright and author contact information for the individual plays are found at the back of the book. The publication of Inside/Outside: Six Plays from Palestine and the Diaspora, through TCG’s Book Program, is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. TCG books are exclusively distributed to the book trade by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Inside/outside : six plays from Palestine and the diaspora / edited by Ismail Khalidi, Naomi Wallace ; introduction by Nathalie Handal. pages cm ISBN 978-1-55936-798-1 (ebook) 1. Arab-Israeli conflict—Drama. 2. Palestinians—Drama. 3. American drama—Palestinian American authors. 4. American drama—21st century. 5. English drama—Palestinian Arab authors. 6. English drama—21st century. 7. Arabic drama—Palestine—Translations into English. 8. Arabic drama—21st century—Translations into English. I. Khalidi, Ismail, editor. II. Wallace, Naomi, editor. 5 PN6120.A76I57 2015 808.82’989274—dc23 2015009938 Cover design, book design and composition by Lisa Govan Cover art: “Tapestry of Life,” 2013 (mixed media on canvas) by Nabil Anani First Edition, June 2015 Tennis in Nablus is copyright © 2015 by Ismail Khalidi. Representative: Ron Gwiazda, Abrams Artists Agency, 275 Seventh Avenue, 26th Floor, New York, NY 10001, (646) 486-4600. Keffiyeh/Made in China is copyright © 2015 by Dalia Taha. Representative: Rachel Taylor, Casarotto Ramsay and Associates, Ltd., Waverley House, 7-12 Noel Street, London, W1F 8GQ, +44 (0)20 7287 4450, [email protected]. Plan D is copyright © 2015 by Hannah Khalil. Representative: Jessica Cooper, Curtis Brown, Haymarket House, 28-29 Haymarket, London, SW1Y 4SP, +44 (0) 20 7393 4400, [email protected]. Handala is copyright © 2015 by Abdelfattah Abusrour. Representative c/o the author: [email protected]. Territories is copyright © 2015 by Betty Shamieh. Representative: Ron Gwiazda, Abrams Artists Agency, 275 Seventh Avenue, 26th Floor, New York, NY 10001, (646) 486-4600. 6 603 is copyright © 2015 by Imad Farajin. Representative c/o the author: [email protected]. 7 This anthology is dedicated to our Palestinian colleagues who continue to create the kind of vibrant, vital theater we all need. And to Juliano Mer-Khamis, whose vision of resistance, through love and theater, has inspired so many. 8 Exile is more than a geographical concept. You can be an exile in your homeland, in your own house, in a room. It’s not simply a Palestinian question. —Mahmoud Darwish 9 CONTENTS Preface By Ismail Khalidi and Naomi Wallace Introduction By Nathalie Handal TENNIS IN NABLUS By Ismail Khalidi KEFFIYEH/MADE IN CHINA By Dalia Taha PLAN D By Hannah Khalil HANDALA Adapted by Abdelfattah Abusrour TERRITORIES By Betty Shamieh 603 By Imad Farajin 10 Further Reading 11 12 PREFACE By Ismail Khalidi and Naomi Wallace lays written by Palestinians have an uphill battle in order Pto see the light of the stage. Palestinian dramatists do not so much write against the grain, though many do, but write against the odds. And the odds are stacked against them: their work is culturally delegitimized, derailed and delimited by the Israeli-Palestinian “conflict” wherein the Israeli perspective is always/already privileged. Our aim in this first-of-its-kind collection is to contribute to the process of putting Palestinian theater on the map, to give it space both in its homegrown as well as its global and diasporic forms. It is important to note that this anthology is ultimately a curated selection and thus only a mere sampling of what is a diverse, ever-growing and constantly evolving body of work by Palestinian writers. Further-more, it is a selection shaped by our respective linguistic and geographic limitations as editors, in that our choices were made from a pool of those plays either originally written in English or already translated from the Arabic. That is why upon reading this anthology it is our hope that readers will be inspired to venture out into the wider body of Palestinian drama, whether in Arabic, English, Hebrew, Spanish, French or any other language through which it expresses itself. While the taboo status of Palestine is changing, especially among younger generations, there are still various levels of censorship, intimidation, misinformation and bias that prevent open discussion of the subject in the media, in Washington 13 DC, on campuses, on screen and onstage. Palestinian plays (or any voices critical of Zionism or Israeli policies), no matter their content, often fall victim to this chilling of free expression. While there have of course been notable exceptions to this rule in the American theater, there is also a laundry list of acts of censorship, pusillanimity and discrimination when it comes to putting Palestine onstage. One of the common refrains used to justify the censoring of these voices is that “both sides” must be represented; the Palestinian requires an answer by the Israeli (though the reverse is rarely demanded). This spurious strategy to equality of representation (that there are “two sides” whenever the Palestinian is aired) is, of course, highly problematic for several reasons. First of all, it is used as a way to limit or shape free speech about Palestine. Secondly, it deprives the work of the right to be judged on its own merits as good drama, irrespective of its being “provocative,” “controversial” or “political.” Ultimately, though, the obsessive need for “balance” adversely affects the weaker party in the conflict, which is the Palestinian side. For there is already profound imbalance in the form of a nuclear-armed occupying state supported by the world’s lone imperial superpower (the U.S.) opposite a divided, dispersed and militarily controlled people with little power and even less access to the mainstream media. Moreover, the long and complex history of Palestinian culture is not reducible to a subset of Israel or the occupation, only legible within the paradigm of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We believe these plays are a vital part of a diverse multi- pronged grassroots effort in the U.S. and internationally to 14 create space for more honest conversations on these issues. It is our hope that this book serves as a modest contribution to countering the obstacles and erasure that face Palestinian playwrights and their work. This collection of compelling, feisty and imaginative plays fits into the long struggle of Palestinians and other oppressed and marginalized people who insist that they do not need permission to narrate their own stories, their own history, and their own visions of a future. We, as editors and writers, believe that Palestinians possess this inalienable right and, in fact, have always exercised it despite the heavy odds against them. We only hope that more and more people will listen to what they have to say. As Nathalie Handal details in her introduction to this collection, Palestinian theater existed long before the advent of the State of Israel and has endured since the expulsion of more than three-quarters of a million Palestinians from their homes in 1947–1948 and the subsequent episodes of dispossession and violence. This collection—and the ones that will surely follow in the coming years—is a testament not only to the existence of Palestinians, but also the vibrancy, the diversity and the perseverance of Palestinian culture and identity and all it has to offer to the theater and to world literature. North Yorkshire and New York April 2015 15 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS pecial thanks from Naomi to Bruce McLeod, and to her Sthree lights: Nadira, Caitlin and Tegan. Thanks from Ismail to friends and fam in New York, Palestine, Chicago, Chile, France, Minneapolis, London, Beirut and beyond. Special thanks to his parents Rashid and Mona, his sisters Lamya and Dima, and his partner Caro. Also, special thanks to the invaluable and endlessly patient Emma Jeszke at TCG for her excellent work and guidance in the creation of this anthology. 16 17 INTRODUCTION By Nathalie Handal n my early twenties, I went to speak to an old man near IHerodion, 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.