Alaa Minawi and Wajdi Khaled on the stage of Al Madina Theater in "No Man’s Land." (Credit: Bachar Khattar)
At Al Madina Theater, you don’t enter No Man’s Land. You’re already in it. The house lights haven’t yet dimmed, and alaa minawi* is there, facing the audience, almost defenseless.No formal curtain rise, no clear divide between life and fiction. He speaks as if beginning a conversation that is just a little too honest.He starts by recounting the genesis of the play he wrote and directed. After the past five years, he says — years spent moving through “blue plagues,” a light phrase that conceals many storms.He reminds the audience that he is “half Lebanese, half Palestinian,” a statement delivered without pathos but heavy with irony. What does one do with a divided inheritance when both peoples have been bleeding for decades?He says he struggled to name the show. Eventually, he settled on No Man’s Land. Then he opened Google Translate to...
At Al Madina Theater, you don’t enter No Man’s Land. You’re already in it. The house lights haven’t yet dimmed, and alaa minawi* is there, facing the audience, almost defenseless.No formal curtain rise, no clear divide between life and fiction. He speaks as if beginning a conversation that is just a little too honest.He starts by recounting the genesis of the play he wrote and directed. After the past five years, he says — years spent moving through “blue plagues,” a light phrase that conceals many storms.He reminds the audience that he is “half Lebanese, half Palestinian,” a statement delivered without pathos but heavy with irony. What does one do with a divided inheritance when both peoples have been bleeding for decades?He says he struggled to name the show. Eventually, he settled on No Man’s Land. Then he opened...