The Last Play in Gaza

Synopsis

On an empty stage, a question arises: “What does a destroyed theater look like?”
From it is born The Last Play in Gaza - an attempt to speak from within the ruins, and to insist that theater must not die.

The play reconstructs The Emigrants by Sławomir Mrożek - the last play performed in Gaza at “Theater for Everybody,” before everything was destroyed. Two Palestinian actors step into the roles of their Gazan counterparts, trying to revive what has been erased. But every time the play nears re-enactment, it is interrupted by testimonies from the genocide written by Hossam Al-Madhoun, the Gazan actor from The Emigrants.

On screen, fragments of footage from that original performance flicker; on stage, actors struggle to recreate those moments. Out of this struggle emerge confessions from actors uprooted from their stage, whose voices and identities are at risk of erasure, and from an actor fighting simply to survive. The actors’ biographies intertwine with the characters from Mrożek’s The Emigrants - a play about exile and identity, weaving together a map of Palestinian voices.

Director: Einat Weizman

Actors: Shahir Kabha, Rami Salman

Script: Einat Weizman, Hossam Al Madhoun, Slavomir Mrozek, Shahir Kabaha, Rami Salman

Edited by: Einat Weizman

Production Manager: May Shahedeh

Light design: Muhammed Shaheen

Music and Sound design: Raymond Haddad

Dramaturgy: Alexandra Aron

Developed in: theater Inlandent, Hamar

Supported by: Remont Theater Project

The Emigrants (Gaza 2021/2)

Director: Naem Nasser