Jen Marlowe's There Is A Field
A Dramatic Reading at the PNT
It was hot, crowded, and full of tears!
As per the usual at the Palestinian National Theatre (PNT), the audience began to file into the small back space only a few minutes before curtain. On this evening of October 2, 2010, the tension was palpable. There were many whispers amongst the theatre's packed audience, while the actors seated on stage also seemed uneasy. More than usual, however, was the number of unfamiliar faces in the audience. Some of the whispers were in Hebrew, while most represented various Palestinian dialects.
Shortly after 7pm, when every seat was filled and a few audience members sat on the stairs or stood in the entry way, artistic director Kamel El-Basha hesitantly looked at a specific side of the audience then stood up and turned around to face the crowd. He greeted everyone then admitted, “I have to apologize. I am particularly nervous tonight. Aseel Asleh's family is here” The actors onstage behind him nodded in agreement. Their awkwardness indicated a high level of emotional involvement with their nearing performance. He continued, “You are about to see a dramatic reading of a play called There Is A Field about a Palestinian shaheed and his family is here with us.” During the month of October 2010, the play was performed in 40 cities in 18 countries as part of playwright Jen Marlowe's Global Call to Theatrical Action (www.donkeysaddle.org). When he finished his introduction, he sat on the wooden platform of the auditorium and the lights changed signaling the beginning of the performance.
A young man stood from his seat on stage and walked to the centre, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.” This young man is Aseel Asleh. He was shot by an Israeli security force during a demonstration in the village of Arrabeh on October 2, 2000. In the play, his story is told by his older sister Nardeen, who was in close contact with him as he grew into a hopeful and optimistic teenager. Through the play, we learn much about the young man. He was an active member of Seeds of Peace, a highly educated youth, a well loved person among his peers, a natural comic presence and a very expressive writer who truly believed that peace could happen between Palestinians and Israelis.
The play primarily tells the story of an unjustified killing, yet in the process, it deals with the most pressing issues facing Palestinian citizens of Israel today. They make up over one fifth of the population of Israel. however, their existence is consistently challenged and, very often, their history as an indigenous population is denied. The play acts as an anthropological document through Nardeen's communications with her brother and her experience before and after his death. We see her when she hears the news, speaks with her parents, communicates with Jewish citizens of Israel, and on occasion, when she addresses her dead brother long after the painful events of the second intifada. She declares in disenchantment, “I don't believe in dialogue programs,” as she describes the fundamental problem with the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, “very few Jewish Israelis recognize that their country was built on the ruins of my nation.”
Marlowe's rendition of events relies on interviews with Aseel’s family, the e-mail exchanges between the siblings, and transcripts of investigative court hearings. The play straddles the line between verbatim theatre and oral history. The playwright weaves the material under the overarching through-line of Nardeen's struggle to deal with her brother's murder in a state that denied him the right to demonstrate and later on, to have a fair trial. The resulting play has peculiarities determined by the source materials. First, it is absolutely direct. When the curtain opens, it invites the audience into a quick paced exploration of the events in question without theatrical conceits or subtext. Characters say what they mean. Second, the language is true to its source. The syntax, through translation of some interviews or direct quotation from original English language e-mails, signals the characters' mindset as non-native speakers, but most significantly as individuals authentically in their milieu. Finally, the narrative jumps freely from event to event and location to location as the original source materials demand. The final outcome of this phenomenon is the feeling that Aseel's story is told as it should be, by people who knew him closely.
On the PNT stage, the actors' closeness in age to the characters at the time of the murder made identification not only easy but rather unavoidable. Furthermore, one cannot forget that this story of a Palestinian martyr was told by Palestinians who at some point in their lives have experienced the same living conditions and, to some degree, the same plight. El-Basha's dramatic reading insisted on minimizing theatrical production values in order to tell the story. To the director's credit, the actors wore their own regular clothes emphasizing the commitment to tell the story in the chosen form. This became most apparent when Nardeen is told by a Jewish character that she appears no different in appearance than any other Jewish citizen of Israel. Interestingly, the actress playing Nardeen wears a hijab in real life, and of course, on stage. The moment functions in two ways. First it emphasizes the form of the event as a reading. Second, it reminds the audience that the story could happen to any family regardless of the degree of their religious affiliation.
The conditions of the performance also supported the overarching narrative. In the backspace of the PNT, the event seemed more like a familial gathering than a theatrical performance. The audience, despite the extremely high temperature due to malfunctioning air conditioners, remained involved in the play until the last second.. With makeshift fans in hand, they listened carefully in support of the family members on stage and in the audience. This familial atmosphere, which included blood relations and some of Aseel's personal friends,was also present in the ensuing talk-back session in the courtyard of the PNT. Actors and audience members sat in a circle as they discussed the production with unrestricted honesty. One theatre artist questioned the definition of Israeli statehood. An individual complained that he wished Palestinians concerned themselves more with the writing of Palestinian plays. Another insisted that a Palestinian should have written this work, rather than a foreigner, only to encounter Aseel's sister's stern response, “He died ten years ago, and nobody came.” Aseel's mother spoke of the need to memorialize the stories of Palestinians who suffer death and imprisonment for the sake of their rights. El-Basha insisted that theatrical forms need this sort of personal story to be effective. One actor reminded the audience, “If it weren't for this play, many of us would not know this story.”
Theatre is the premier medium of the oppressed. Since time immemorial, this form has served as an historical document of otherwise ephemeral moments and erased histories. On the tenth anniversary of Aseel Asleh's death, There is A Field forced its audiences to pause and remember the loss of a promising youth. In the process, it highlighted the struggles of a family, the challenges of a people, and the demons of a nation.
S. Al-Saber
Occupied East Jerusalem
A Dramatic Reading at the PNT
It was hot, crowded, and full of tears!
As per the usual at the Palestinian National Theatre (PNT), the audience began to file into the small back space only a few minutes before curtain. On this evening of October 2, 2010, the tension was palpable. There were many whispers amongst the theatre's packed audience, while the actors seated on stage also seemed uneasy. More than usual, however, was the number of unfamiliar faces in the audience. Some of the whispers were in Hebrew, while most represented various Palestinian dialects.
Shortly after 7pm, when every seat was filled and a few audience members sat on the stairs or stood in the entry way, artistic director Kamel El-Basha hesitantly looked at a specific side of the audience then stood up and turned around to face the crowd. He greeted everyone then admitted, “I have to apologize. I am particularly nervous tonight. Aseel Asleh's family is here” The actors onstage behind him nodded in agreement. Their awkwardness indicated a high level of emotional involvement with their nearing performance. He continued, “You are about to see a dramatic reading of a play called There Is A Field about a Palestinian shaheed and his family is here with us.” During the month of October 2010, the play was performed in 40 cities in 18 countries as part of playwright Jen Marlowe's Global Call to Theatrical Action (www.donkeysaddle.org). When he finished his introduction, he sat on the wooden platform of the auditorium and the lights changed signaling the beginning of the performance.
A young man stood from his seat on stage and walked to the centre, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.” This young man is Aseel Asleh. He was shot by an Israeli security force during a demonstration in the village of Arrabeh on October 2, 2000. In the play, his story is told by his older sister Nardeen, who was in close contact with him as he grew into a hopeful and optimistic teenager. Through the play, we learn much about the young man. He was an active member of Seeds of Peace, a highly educated youth, a well loved person among his peers, a natural comic presence and a very expressive writer who truly believed that peace could happen between Palestinians and Israelis.
The play primarily tells the story of an unjustified killing, yet in the process, it deals with the most pressing issues facing Palestinian citizens of Israel today. They make up over one fifth of the population of Israel. however, their existence is consistently challenged and, very often, their history as an indigenous population is denied. The play acts as an anthropological document through Nardeen's communications with her brother and her experience before and after his death. We see her when she hears the news, speaks with her parents, communicates with Jewish citizens of Israel, and on occasion, when she addresses her dead brother long after the painful events of the second intifada. She declares in disenchantment, “I don't believe in dialogue programs,” as she describes the fundamental problem with the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, “very few Jewish Israelis recognize that their country was built on the ruins of my nation.”
Marlowe's rendition of events relies on interviews with Aseel’s family, the e-mail exchanges between the siblings, and transcripts of investigative court hearings. The play straddles the line between verbatim theatre and oral history. The playwright weaves the material under the overarching through-line of Nardeen's struggle to deal with her brother's murder in a state that denied him the right to demonstrate and later on, to have a fair trial. The resulting play has peculiarities determined by the source materials. First, it is absolutely direct. When the curtain opens, it invites the audience into a quick paced exploration of the events in question without theatrical conceits or subtext. Characters say what they mean. Second, the language is true to its source. The syntax, through translation of some interviews or direct quotation from original English language e-mails, signals the characters' mindset as non-native speakers, but most significantly as individuals authentically in their milieu. Finally, the narrative jumps freely from event to event and location to location as the original source materials demand. The final outcome of this phenomenon is the feeling that Aseel's story is told as it should be, by people who knew him closely.
On the PNT stage, the actors' closeness in age to the characters at the time of the murder made identification not only easy but rather unavoidable. Furthermore, one cannot forget that this story of a Palestinian martyr was told by Palestinians who at some point in their lives have experienced the same living conditions and, to some degree, the same plight. El-Basha's dramatic reading insisted on minimizing theatrical production values in order to tell the story. To the director's credit, the actors wore their own regular clothes emphasizing the commitment to tell the story in the chosen form. This became most apparent when Nardeen is told by a Jewish character that she appears no different in appearance than any other Jewish citizen of Israel. Interestingly, the actress playing Nardeen wears a hijab in real life, and of course, on stage. The moment functions in two ways. First it emphasizes the form of the event as a reading. Second, it reminds the audience that the story could happen to any family regardless of the degree of their religious affiliation.
The conditions of the performance also supported the overarching narrative. In the backspace of the PNT, the event seemed more like a familial gathering than a theatrical performance. The audience, despite the extremely high temperature due to malfunctioning air conditioners, remained involved in the play until the last second.. With makeshift fans in hand, they listened carefully in support of the family members on stage and in the audience. This familial atmosphere, which included blood relations and some of Aseel's personal friends,was also present in the ensuing talk-back session in the courtyard of the PNT. Actors and audience members sat in a circle as they discussed the production with unrestricted honesty. One theatre artist questioned the definition of Israeli statehood. An individual complained that he wished Palestinians concerned themselves more with the writing of Palestinian plays. Another insisted that a Palestinian should have written this work, rather than a foreigner, only to encounter Aseel's sister's stern response, “He died ten years ago, and nobody came.” Aseel's mother spoke of the need to memorialize the stories of Palestinians who suffer death and imprisonment for the sake of their rights. El-Basha insisted that theatrical forms need this sort of personal story to be effective. One actor reminded the audience, “If it weren't for this play, many of us would not know this story.”
Theatre is the premier medium of the oppressed. Since time immemorial, this form has served as an historical document of otherwise ephemeral moments and erased histories. On the tenth anniversary of Aseel Asleh's death, There is A Field forced its audiences to pause and remember the loss of a promising youth. In the process, it highlighted the struggles of a family, the challenges of a people, and the demons of a nation.
S. Al-Saber
Occupied East Jerusalem
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