This Wouldn't Be 'Guerrilla Theater' Now, Would It?

Palestinian theatre offers youths a breath of freedom

JENIN, West Bank (AFP) — ...Bisam is among some 200 Palestinian youths who manage to escape the stifling atmosphere of their home in the northern West Bank town of Jenin by taking part in a project called The Freedom Theatre. In addition to an actual theatre that puts on productions for the locals, the project also includes access to computers, books, CDs and DVDs.

"The children love it," says Nabil al-Rai, a 32-year-old actor and director of the theatre that stands at the end of a tiny alley amid the dusty, poverty-plagued streets of the Jenin refugee camp.

"Here, they can feel free."

Feeling free when you live in Jenin is no small feat.

The town of 39,000 lies nestled in the hills of breathtaking beauty that belie the ever-tightening grip of the 42-year Israeli occupation.

Drive just five kilometres (three miles) to the north and you run into an Israeli army checkpoint that prevents West Bankers without special permits from entering Israel. The permits are nearly impossible to get.

Go 10 kilometres west and the way is blocked by Israel's security barrier as it reaches deep inside Palestinian territory walling off a Jewish settlement.

Wander 13 kilometres to the east and the barrier cuts off any access to the flower-dotted hills with majestic views on the Jordan Valley.

The sandy beaches of the Mediterranean are an hour's drive away, but they may as well be on the moon as far as the children of Jenin are concerned..."The children here cannot go to the sea, even to the Dead Sea... They are in a big prison," al-Rai says.

This is so anachronistic, wrong and stupid.

Even before 1967 the Jeninites (?) couldn't go north or west either. South, yes but they had to detour around West Jerusalem.

But let's get back to the theater:

But on the stage, there are no permits and no restrictions. "The whole idea is to have freedom through threatre," says al-Rai. "To think about culture, about how to fight, to keep up resistance and keep the Palestinian identity."

Nice idea. But whose?

The theatre was established by an Israeli woman, Arna Mer-Khamis during the first Palestinian intifada in 1987 and known as "Stone Theatre."...It was rebuilt by Mer-Khamis's actor son Juliano in 2004, with the help of Zakaria Zubeidi, one of the most powerful militants in Jenin who himself is an alumni of the project...

But the theatre is not without domestic critics, including those who resort to violence. A week ago, someone tried to set fire to the building, with the blaze damaging the front door.

"These attacks and threats against the theatre come from small reactionary groups in the camp displaying narrow, racist interests, and who consider theatre, cinema and music as destructive factors in the Palestinian struggle for liberation," the theatre later said in a statement.

Supporters of the project hope that the attack was an isolated incident.

Just make sure that when the gun appears in the first act, it doesn't shoot - not in the third or ever. (*)




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"If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there." From Gurlyand's Reminiscences of A. P. Chekhov, in Teatr i iskusstvo 1904, No. 28, 11 July, p. 521.’