Four characters, two alive and two dead, trapped in the same room, for eleven days, in the middle of a war.
“Bint Jbeil” is a play written by Saseen Kawzally (Lebanon). It was produced, in its development stage, by the National Theatre of Scotland: one week development workshop in Sep, 2007 in Beirut, and three weeks of rehearsal and development with three work in progress performances, in Scotland, in June 2008. It was co-directed by Saseen Kawzally and Ben Harrison, with a British team and lebanese actors. It was performed in lebanese with english surtitles.
I quote from the flyer of the performance:
“There are always things we do, that we can never forgive ourselves for doing, and then there are things we don’t do that we also never forgive ourselves for not doing. I am forever ashamed of myself for walking away from that house, in the town of Bint Jbeil, on the last day of the summer war in July 2006, when everything I believe in was telling me that I should stay, and do something, right there and then. Instead, I promised to come back end never did. I am still not sure if I meant what I said or was just offering some false hope for people who had nothing left, maybe not even themselves. This is something I’ll never forgive myself for doing.
(…) I chose to tell the story of these four people, something I would not have forgiven myself for not doing. The story of four people trapped behind a door (…) behind a window (…) beyond life, and before death.” (Saseen Kawzally)
“However Bint Jbeil is not primarily about the war. It is about articulating the fact that those at the sharp end of the conflict, often the very young, or the very old, almost never have a voice. (…) Bint Jbeil is also a celebration of empathy. Theatre is good at empathy in a way rolling news coverage is not. ” (Ben Harrison)
responsibility start, and where does it end? Is being killed by a
bomb, equivalent to being killed by a man? Where is the man?
That noise! That sound of anticipation. Every noise could be your
death, but only one of them will finally kill you. It’s is, in a way,
like reversed lottery. A certain number of people will die, and a
certain number will survive. An unearned extension of life. Do you
really ever survive a bomb raid? Surviving by mere coordinates.
It must feel very unfair to die in bomb explosion. Surely all murder
is unfair, but here, you are a target eliminated. Your fate is set
months, maybe years in advance, when a “target bank” is filled.
Who are you facing, when expecting a bomb? And what room
It is so sudden it can only be either very white, or very black,
It is so loud, so deafening, we cannot hear it. It is as fast as
known, yet stillness at its stillest. All said, what exactly survives
in you, when not killed by the bomb?”
Saseen Kawzally
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