The Horse of Jenin, Pleasance Dome ★★★★★
Alaa Shehada bounds onto the stage, all muscular energy and swaggering self-confidence, for what’s effectively a cross between stand-up and solo theatre. Is it wrong to joke about Palestine? Definitely not, the larger-than-life, matey Shehada clearly thinks, finding plenty that’s funny, or certainly much that’s bleakly ironic, in his native city of Jenin in the West Bank, its cast of flawed, colourful characters, and its strange and awkward ways of life. With the threatening spectre of Israeli occupation constantly in the background.
In many ways, The Horse of Jenin is a pretty straightforward show, as Jenin-born, now Amsterdam-based Shehada looks back on the joys and frustrations of his childhood, his hopes of finding a girl, and his affection for his almost fraternal friend Ahmed, summoning his vivid cast of characters through some nicely judged mask work. So far, so simple. But it’s the energy he radiates that makes the show so special – and, more importantly, his deft ability to mix comedy and tragedy in a single observation, his unfailing ability to remind us of the brutality and injustice of everyday Jenin life without manipulating emotions or attempting to pull rugs or instil guilt. As a result, his delivery is all the more powerful, and his messages of hope and resilience (and of frustration and fury) all the more important.
And they’re messages symbolised by the equine creation of the show’s title, a sculpture created in 2003 by German artist Thomas Kilpper using the debris from IDF attacks, a monument that quickly became a Jenin landmark, and a symbol of resistance and defiance – not only a recurring theme in Shehada’s energetic show, but also what the show itself effectively becomes. It’s a quickfire, funny, deceptively powerful hour of theatre.
- Until 25 August
Nowhere, Traverse Theatre ★★★
Admittedly, this intricate solo show from actor and activist Khalid Abdalla (pictured above, image by Helen Murray) has a far broader focus than just Palestine. Nonetheless, the current brutality being inflicted on the Gazan population is the subject of a particularly impassioned section of Abdalla’s powerful but flawed creation.
It’s an obvious truism, but if a show tackles a worthy, powerful or particularly emotive subject, that doesn’t necessarily make it a worthy, powerful or particularly emotive show. Such is the case with Abdalla’s deeply personal, somewhat elusive work which draws together intimate reflection, family history, friendships, Arab Spring protests, colonial history, neoliberalism and plenty more in a freewheeling hopscotch of interconnected ideas that feels at times like a Middle Eastern version of James Burke’s Connections (if anyone is old enough to remember that 1970s classic).
Abdalla is an engaging presence throughout, leading us by the hand through his web of intertwining themes, as well as delivering a couple of convincing dance routines, and even getting us to attempt a self-portrait (and, it has to be said, threatening to dissipate the intensity he’s generated in the process). In throwing his net so wide, he gratifyingly draws together broad themes and ideas, but also saps the focus of his show. It’s one thing to place the Middle East’s turmoil in its historical context, and to humanise it with personal stories of family hardship – and Abdalla’s creation serves powerfully to do all that, thereby rendering the region’s many years of conflict all the more vivid. But Abdalla sometimes slips too deeply into personal anecdote or individual interest, teetering dangerously towards self-indulgence.
Nonetheless, Nowhere remains a powerful, persuasive show that manages to raise fundamental questions of identity among its many tales of travel and migration. Teresa May’s infamous ‘citizens of the world’ speech echoes throughout the show’s intricacies, yet Abdalla proposes a potent response: the very space we’re sharing might be ‘nowhere’, a location separated from nation, conflict and violence, and a forum where these basic issues can be considered in peace and safety.
- Until 24 August
