If War Was Only A Joke

The Lebanese Civil War lasted over 15 years, destroyed Beirut’s cultural and commercial life and drew neighboring regional powers into intense political and military conflict. The generation of Lebanese youth who grew up against the backdrop of the hostilities includes the 40 -year old director Rabih Mroué. Although he would only have been a young boy at the beginning of the war, in a caustically humorous examination of the conflict, recently presented in Paris, he and his contemporaries become “freedom fighters” of different and variable stripes, corpses enlisted incessantly into a seemingly endless battle. The show’s title, in English, “How Nancy Wished That Everything Was an April Fool’s Joke”, provides a clue as to how Mroué’s generation approaches its shared and painful history and faces the specter of renewed violence since July 2006 : a kind of deliberate naïveté where one could just wish the troubles away, eyes closed and fingers crossed. The four characters who relate their involvement in the war and the circumstances of their numerous deaths never flinch however from the causes they defend, whether they join the ranks of Communist revolutionaries, Muslim brothers, the pro-Syrian Amal party or the Christian Free Patriotic Movement. Wedged uncomfortably into a single couch, moving only when their turn comes to speak, and dressed in the threads of modern Lebanese 40-somethings, the actors and their “testimonies” blend into a single story of the paradoxical unreality of a conflict that claimed thousands of lives for little if any political or social gain. The message is underscored by the brilliant iconographical work of Samar Maakaroun and Ziena Maasri, who recreate faithfully and cleverly the posters of the glorious deceased in the colors and symbolism of the parties who claim their acts of “heroism”. Judging from the knowing laughter among the Arab-speaking members of the audience, Mroué and company touch a nerve in a society yet vulnerable to a past that threatens to repeat itself, and in so doing, demonstrate for audiences less versed in the geopolitical complexities and nuances of the region how theater can serve as a vital and immediate forum for social reflection. Drawing on the idea of the virtual worlds of video games now familiar, and ever more real perhaps, to the next generation of Lebanese youth, Mroué succeeds in showing, with “How Nancy Wished…” what is at stake for he and his contemporaries : life itself. “We have the responsibility to think seriously about our history, because we cannot continue in the way we have,” he has said. “We don’t want to die again, one more time. We have had enough.”
Note: Mroué’s accomplice in “How Nancy Wished…”, Lina Saneh performs “Appendice” later this month (see previous post for more details).
“How Nancy Wished That Everything Was an April Fool’s Joke”, to Oct. 21, Festival d'Automne/Théâtre de la Cité internationale, info/reservations: www.festival-automne.com or www.theatredelacite.com
Photo Credit: Rabih Mroué, "Martyr pour que vive le Liban", photo-montage by Samar Maakaroun