The Gaza Monologues: Palestine, Representation, and Reciprocity

Abstract

The Gaza Monologues Palestine, Representation, and Reciprocity Samer Al-Saber (bio), Jeanmarie Higgins (bio), Ryan J. Douglass (bio), Jeanmarie Higgins (bio), and Michael Schweikardt (bio) Introduction: What-Where is Prompt? Materiality in the Digital Space Prompt: A Journal of Theatre Theory, Practice, and Teaching is a generative space where theatre artists, educators, and scholars converge to exchange ideas that prompt new thoughts and practices. We, the coeditors, created this online, open-access journal in 2020. Responding to a moment when digital space became the default site of learning and theatrical storytelling, we sought to investigate issues of materiality and liveness in those spaces. Prompt hosts conversations between artists, teachers, and scholars in theatre and performance studies. Each volume puts two sets of materials in conversation. Our first volume, "Teaching Theatre with Things," grew from the MFA graduate pedagogy seminar at the Pennsylvania State University. When we switched to remote learning, the graduate students—designers, directors, and technologists—met over Zoom to complete an exercise we had begun in our live seminar: How might we teach each other something about theatre using a humble object? A costume design student taught us about creating character using socks. A scenic designer illustrated the difference between 2D and 3D [End Page 54] design using a knife and a bagel. We took six videos from this experiment and asked scholars to respond to them. A second issue of this volume produced six more teaching videos. Prompt, volume 2021, pairs discarded scenic design models with plays. Each playwright is asked to write a play that takes place in a discarded scenic model's world. As of this writing, we have produced two issues of this volume, and a third will feature one-minute musicals. In this way, Prompt is both an homage and a reframing of the dramaturgy used in Imagined Theatres, conceived and edited by Daniel Sack. Just as each "imagined theatre" contains both a theatre and its gloss, so we reached out to scholars and playwrights and teachers, asking them to write something in response to an artifact of a fellow theatre artist's practice. We have plans for future volumes, all of which will continue to grow this public space where theatre artists, educators, and scholars converge to exchange ideas that engender innovation. A feature of every issue is a podcast with a theatre theorist we admire. We have interviewed Ariel Nereson about theory and dance, Jane Barnette about theories of dramaturgy, and in our current issue, "Monologues," we interviewed Samer Al-Saber about a broad range of subjects, including the monologue as a Palestinian form, performance as solidarity, and his own work as a playwright. What follows is an excerpt from that interview. The full interview transcript can be found at www.promptjournal.org. The Gaza Monologues jeanm arie higgins: So can you tell us about The Gaza Monologues, what is the project? How did you discover it? How can we engage with it? samer al-saber: I discovered The Gaza Monologues when I was in Ramallah about ten years ago. ASHTAR Theater did a full production that I saw at the cultural palace there. I was amazed by the language, by the production itself, by the acting, by the presence of everyone there. I don't remember how many people were there, but it was in the hundreds. A full house. And so the experience of the young people in Gaza during a war, being under siege, under attack, and being able to engage with theatre, being able to tell their stories was quite powerful. And then when I was coming up with the concept for an anthology of plays produced in Palestine, created in Palestine by Palestinians for Palestinians in Palestinian theatres, the monologues had to be there and so, Gary English and I edited this anthology called Stories Under Occupation: [End Page 55] And Other Plays from Palestine, which has The Gaza Monologues in it. When the latest events were happening in May [2021], the air raids, the attacks on Gaza, I was in a bit of a paralysis of not being able to do anything. And I opened the anthology and there were those plays. And I thought...