Arabic Facts Clashing Hybridities in Transnational Cultural Production

Abstract

In 2012, Bethlehem’s Al-Rowwad Cultural and Theatre Society undertook the challenge of co-producing Arthur Milner’s Facts with the New Theatre of Ottawa for a nine-city tour in the region. The successful production and warm reception to the play highlighted the potential for more Canadian playwrights, companies, and artists to engage with Palestine through cultural and theatrical exchanges. It also highlighted a series of challenging political, cultural, and philosophical differences, which emerged in production, talkbacks, and audience reception. Palestinian communities in different cities reacted in remarkably different ways to the play, which tells the story of two Israeli and Palestinian investigators as they attempt to solve a murder mystery in the West Bank. In Bethlehem, political issues of security coordination between the Palestinian Authority and Israel dominated the discussion. In Hebron, the audience responded to the engagement with settlers and the predominant presence of the Goldstein massacre at the end of the play. The mixed Israeli-Palestinian audience in Jaffa reacted in similar ways to the Canadian audience in Ottawa, focusing on the rift between religious and secular Israel. These varied responses reflected the transnational dimension of the production: the Canadian origins of the play, its hybridity in production, its international appeal, and its relevance to Palestine. I will outline the challenges of the production through a description, analysis, and critique of the process that led to opening night in Bethlehem’s Dar Annadwa Addawliyya, and closing night at Al-Rowwad. From the checkpoint to closing night, I tell the story of a successful partnership, while revealing the inevitable clashes of values that took place in this transnational cultural production.