The intimate space of the tiny downstairs theatre at Belvoir Street has been transformed to become 1986 war time Beirut in this mesmerizing current production. As directed excellently by Anna Jahjah this is BEIRUT ADRENALINE’s Australian premiere as well as being its first production in English.
Set design by Clarisse Ambroselli is a bullet holed scarred wall which also doubles as a projection screen with portable props such as folding chairs, tables, mattresses…The sparse minimal staging allows for fluid scene changes and wonderfully impressive lighting by Larry Kelly.
The play is set in war torn Lebanon in 1986 and we follow the lives of the Daher family , ordinary civilians struggling to survive with constant power water and phone cuts among other things plus the ever present threatening sound of gunfire, sirens and bombs. They are separated by the war. Zyad and his sister Mona manage to escape to Paris, but their brother Marwan is trapped in Beirut. There is a sense of constant stress and pressure.
The play flows between Paris and Beirut with several of the cast – who all give passionately committed performances – playing dual roles. It can perhaps be confusing but the performers work together marvelously. The challenging, informative script is at times extremely intense and searing, whilst at other times it is wistful, dreamlike and romantic.
The play begins with Zyad, an academic, ( Eli Saad) brainstorming aloud about his proposal for a book on the causes of instability in Lebanon as Mona (Sana’a Shaik), his challenging, rebellious younger sister caustically relays a friend’s statement that as a Lebanese she is “a potential terrorist”.
The play then jumps to Beirut we meet Marwan (also played by Saad , with a cap on backwards) who has moved into a flat in Beirut with his Tante Najat (Danielle Dona), who lives mostly in a dream world of a more peaceful elegant past. Marwan tries to keep himself going by jogging, tentatively dreaming of a future in which he will become an elite athlete. His neighbour, beautiful Rima (Neveen Hanna in a mesmerizing performance), envisages her small balcony as an art gallery in which her plans to hold an independent and free art exhibition will come to fruition.
Rima and Marwan, in a delicate scene that is a high point in the productioin, meet in the unconfined no man’s land of the middle space and languorously dance of living in a more graceful, peaceful and romantic future.
Rima manages to send her war-obsessed brother, Toufic (darkly handsome Mansoor Noor who gives a splendid performance as the smooth, suave, Steve McQueen gun obsessed guy from his tense , electric opening entrance) to Paris to survive. His breakdown is shattering. Ultimately Zyad is unable to stop spirited Mona from going back to the Lebanon she loves.
Tall, bald Eli Saad is consistently impressive in the dual roles of Zayad and Marwan. In the role of bespectacled lecturer Zayad he has the long closing monologue that takes us back in time over the millennium covering the history of the war torn region. We ask ourselves – how can the country’s leaders make things better? Could things be handled differently?
Alternating between Lebanon and France, between the Orient and the Western world , BEIRUT ADRENALINE is a questioning, quite moving piece of theatre attempting to analyse the various ways we as humans deal with tragedy . While it is set 30 years ago it is extremely relevant and contemporary now. We see how people endure the disintegration and fragmentation of their homeland and struggle to hope for the future.
Theatre Excentrique’s production of BEIRUT ADRENALINE by
Hala Ghosn and Jalie Barcilon with translation by Anna Jahjah and Kris Shalvey runs at Belvoir St Downstairs until August 14.
http://www.theatrexcentrique.com/