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2021

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Scènes

To engage with this performance is as difficult as the emotions and thoughts it agitates. For some of the audience, it might have also stirred up memories. This one hour and a half play felt like a walk in the confusing and overwhelming backstreets of Beirut, where Hanane and Randa led the way and made sure we don't get lost.

It is strange to start with the end. Yet, the performance might be purposely or unintentionally leading to that specific moment, the grand finale. The finale encapsulated the whole performance. It was its crowning, its zenith. In itself, this was a moment of power and vulnerability. Two women, two actresses leaning on each other in an intimate hug on a stage they unquestionably just conquered and owned. They don't have to prove that fact to anyone.

On the other hand, the opening scene was the defining moment. From the start, Hanane and Randa positioned themselves as women actresses in a male dominated profession and a patriarchal society. They elaborated, using a fiery dialogue, about the director, the writer and the producer who 'own' the work versus the actresses who receive a 'yaa'tikeh el afyeh' (pat on the back). Each, in her own way, unapologetically presented herself as a woman with a different story and a different living experience. They made us aware that theirs and the others' stories that will unfold are stories narrated by women who are 'icons' of their own tales.

The dialogue and the performance were constructed to go back and forth. An ebb and flow between intensity and lightness, during which Hanane and Randa were untangling with patience and care the history (ies) of the theater, of a city, a country and a region, and uncovering the stories of the people who lived there and made those histories mainly their own. Smoothly, they went over the religious, political, cultural, economic and social threads, laying them bare in front of us, playing with them, dancing with them, laughing at them. Eventually, they handed them back to us, untangled and knot-free. Like many others in the audience, I left the play with my own share of threads. The ones I could identify. I thought that untangled and knot-free threads are easy to handle. Yet, on the contrary, they are heavy and tripping. Etel Adnan, in her book Master of the Eclipse, asks, "What is he if not a mass of confusion always searching for the very thing that he will refuse to grasp whenever the grasping becomes possible?". She refers to a man in this quote. I wonder if Hanane, Randa and Chrystel did exactly that. They made it easier to grasp this notion, and it was up to us to decide whether to refuse or embrace what we received.

In a country where there is little to no collective memory, as well as little to no efforts to build it, Hanane, Randa and Chrytel worked on building a collective memory of the theater, particularly in Lebanon during the civil war. They portrayed eloquently the different faces a theater can embody and its relationship with the city[1]. In a divided city, the theater naturally took on divided identities. What if the city was united and one? What would be the identity of the Lebanese theater then? Hanane and Randa asked themselves that. Yet, the question I left with was 'What is Theater?'. For Hanane, it is in itself a political act; it is the space for many causes to come to life. With the Hakawati Group, the main cause was to fight for diversity. Theater for her is the 'We'. For Randa, the theater in itself is the cause. It is the place to escape the prison we live in, or we are forced to live in, and thus, is worth fighting for. Theater for her is the 'I'. Hanane wanted to change the world; Randa wanted to find herself.

Both actresses presented themselves as they are: true and genuine, with their similarities and their differences. It's like they were saying to a diverse and mixed audience that diversity and difference are okay. They can co-exist on the same stage. At a professional level, Hanane and Randa succeeded in establishing an interesting power dynamic. The veteran actresses could not be more fit to stand in front of each other. Each one of them took her own unique space without shadowing the other. This leads me to the 'we' mentioned numerous times in the performance. The 'we' is clear in this work; Chrystele's writing and directing and Hanane and Randa's performance could not be discussed as separate entities. The three women managed to create a complete and solid body of the many and diverse pieces and voices they had. The 'we' is brought together by 'Jawã[2] '; one of the final stages on the love spectrum in Arabic Literature. Much like the many names they referred to in the play, they have a burning love to the theater that almost causes the body to ache. Randa quotes Remon Jbarra saying 'theater is born from aches".

To ease the weight of raw and bare truths, Hanane, Randa and Chrystel offered a small dose of hope. The title in itself, in French/English or Arabic, opens a door to the future. Hanane voiced her dreams of a theater that fits a country and a country that fits a theater. Randa voiced her dream to have an open theater above the ground. They left it to us to interpret the performance and perhaps predict (help shape) the future. Perhaps this miracle play that became a reality amidst a pandemic, economic downfall and political failure would continue a legacy of an unyielding Lebanese theater.

Article edited by Hajar Assaad

[1] To read more about the relation between the theater and Beirut, see Hanane Haj Ali's book Teatre Beirut, (2010).

[2] http://www.qfi.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/QFI_Infographic_Love_final_web-1.pdf

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To engage with this performance is as difficult as the emotions and thoughts it agitates. For some of the audience, it might have also stirred up memories. This one hour and a half play felt like a walk in the confusing and overwhelming backstreets of Beirut, where Hanane and Randa led the way and made sure we don't get lost.

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2021
Beirut - Lebanon

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2018
Beirut - Lebanon

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2018
Beirut - Lebanon

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2019
Hamat - Lebanon

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2020
Beirut - Lebanon

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2020
Beirut - Lebanon

# data[].attributes.body
2020
Beirut - Lebanon

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The blue graffiti reads: "Oh, my wonderful country." Photo by Nohad Elhajj.
Since the 17 th of October 2019, Lebanon has been witnessing widespread public protests against the dire social, economic, and political conditions of the country. A first in the country's history, forevermore divided by sectarianism, the protests showed and continue to show a shared and entrenched anger among Lebanese citizens from different sects and regions. The protesters are holding the government accountable for degrading living conditions and demanding serious and drastic changes. Taking a tour around Riyad El Soloh square in downtown Beirut, the epicenter of the uprising, a common daily scene unfolds: young people are chanting patriotic songs, others are cleaning the streets, many food kiosks are selling street food, tents are set up for public dialogues, and army forces are watching from afar. But something, equally alive, captivates the place: graffiti. Building walls, stone barriers, wooden panels, even the asphalt ground are all covered with graffiti. With their diverse slogans, creative motifs, and direct, uncensored political and social messages, the graffiti artists collectively illustrate the people's discourse demanding a full-fledged social and political reform.

This year, Lebanese citizens were not the only ones who took the streets. Protests erupted globally in response to failed economic, political, social, and environmental governing systems where, both the global North and the global South, basic human rights are either threatened or violated and human rights defenders are either prosecuted or killed. This is not surprising as a new report by CIVICUS Monitor shows that people living in countries where civic freedoms are being violated have doubled compared to a year ago. Thus, as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights turns 71 this year, reflecting on the present status of human rights and the human rights movement is of utmost need. More importantly, we need to consider questions about the future of those rights and this movement. In his 2019 article, Thomas Coombes offers a new way to address the future of Human Rights with "hope-based communication", which not only relays facts about a "broken" world to the public but also shifts their perspectives to dare to dream about a better one. The power of this strategy is its ability to transcend the human rights "sector" to be adopted by other sectors as well. Elif Shafak, a novelist and women's rights activist, mentions that "We have entered an age in which we all need to become activists for human rights." Similarly to Shafak's use of novels to shift public perspectives on several human rights issues, Banksy, perhaps the most famous example of a well-known graffiti artist on a global scale, also uses his murals to provide strong social and political commentaries, such as his newest stunt depicting a migrant child in Venice.

Graffiti, as a visual act, can be leveraged as a participatory and accessible medium to shift public perspectives on human rights issues.

Graffiti is defined as "a form of visual communication, usually illegal, involving the unauthorized marking of public space by an individual or group". The definition by itself poses a duality; would unauthorized marking of public space become positive communication? Would it possibly shift perspectives? Maybe not all, but some graffiti certainly does convey political messages. The question here is not about authority per se but the disruption of this authority. The act itself is intrinsically disruptive and political whether graffiti is acceptable or not. Starting from this understanding, graffiti, as a visual act, then can be leveraged as a participatory and accessible medium to shift public perspectives on human rights issues. Yet, the human rights movement does not only need to shift the public opinion but also to shift the current governance structures, which is beyond the impact of graffiti. The graffiti in Riyad El Soloh Square is a good illustration of this.

Graffiti is not new to the Lebanese society, but revolution graffiti is particular and powerful because of its relevance, the messages it conveys, and the places it occupies to convey these messages. The graffiti artists practiced their right to freedom of expression, of peaceful assembly and association, while communicating, directly and clearly, human rights demands from women rights, LGBTQ rights, economic and social rights to civil and political rights. (Shown in Pictures below).

Already screaming politics, this outburst of graffiti is even more powerful simply because of where it is taking place. The physical space the graffiti occupied has been considered for years sanctified, new, upscale, and highly segregated. Up until the 17 th of October, downtown Beirut was a monochromatic, soulless, and mute part of a vibrant Beirut. It was hard to imagine that in only a few days, it would become the place of such a defiant artistic expression. And this art brought along with it an aspiration that one day, public spaces in the country will be open to everyone, and they will develop to be the epicenter for social and human interactions especially downtown. While all the graffiti work has been celebrated in the news outlets, the graffiti marking Al Amin Mosque and Saint George's Cathedral has been removed rapidly.

The graffiti imposes itself on the observer and on the spaces it occupies with wit and audacity. It overwhelms the observer with emotions of anger, despair, longing and revolt but also with hope.

The Lebanese graffiti artists have pushed and merged both boundaries of political participation and art. The graffiti imposes itself on the observer and on the spaces it occupies with wit and audacity. It overwhelms the observer with emotions of anger, despair, longing and revolt but also with hope.

Much of this street art offers a thought-provoking mosaic of entangled messages and images. The graffiti above shows a white pigeon (a recurring image) combined with a strong slogan about workers' rights; this combination conveys that those rights, and other demands, will be achieved in the future.

Similar to that, the graffiti at the beginning of this article offers another perplexing combination. The whole piece can be read as: "Oh my wonderful country, sectarianism burned us". As much as it articulates a cry of despair with hurt and agony, it also retains the image of a wonderful country before civil war and a political system that has crippled it for the past 45 years. The generation who lived the war is still lamenting it and the following generations were still living in the resulting divisions and sectarianism-up until the 17th of October 2019. Akin to the protests, the graffiti captured a future hope of a country that will regain its glory after necessary social and political change.

The artists' urge to mark every visible surface around Riad El Soloh square with spray paint and brushes placed them right in the middle of an already contested political and social scene, and it placed the rights discourse in the middle and around this scene. This graffiti proved to be a strong visual expression of all the protesters' demands and a way to engage the public with it, both inside and outside Lebanon. Through their paint, these graffiti artists created a distinctive, unprecedented, and positive narrative about human rights in Lebanon: a narrative that more and more organizations and activists are now hanging onto.

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Graffiti creates positive human rights narratives in Lebanon

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The blue graffiti reads: "Oh, my wonderful country." Photo by Nohad Elhajj. Since the 17 th of October 2019, Lebanon has been witnessing widespread public protests against the dire social, economic, and political conditions of the country.