Aleppo. A Portrait of Absence [2020]

A prolific writer since the start of the Syrian uprising in March 2011, his works focuses on the social and political role of theatre, and the Syrian revolution. In2006 he joined, as a playwright, the Studio Théâtre founded in Damascus in 2001 by Omar Abusaada.

He wrote his first play, Withdrawal, in 2007. It is set in a small Damascus apartment where a couple lives and finds refuge from the social control mechanisms of society. After the first large wave of arrests in Syria in 2011, his play Could You Please Look into the Camera? (2012) has people speaking directly to the camera, describing how they were tortured in prison. Those two plays, along with Look at the Streets… This Is What Hope Looks Like (2011), Online (2011), A Chance Encounter (2013) and Youssef Was Here (2013) were presented in London, New York, Seoul, Berlin, Athens, Tunisia and elsewhere.

His play While I Was Waiting made its début at the kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels in 2016, and was selected as part of the 70^thAvignon Festival before going on to tour Europe.

Together they create theatre that is intimately linked to social and political changes, works that hover on the boundary between fiction and documentation. Adapting Greek tragedies, they created a theatrical trilogy dedicated to the lives of women seeking refuge from war, the geographical and psychological journey of Syrian women, first with Trojan Women (2013) in Jordan, and then Antigone of Shatila (2014) in Lebanon, followed by Iphigenia in Berlin (2017). In 2017 too, they presented in Berlin Aleppo. A Portrait of Absence, working with the set designer Bissane Al Charif, a frequent collaborator. A native of Damascus now living in Paris, she also has been using her art in support of the Syrian people since 2011. The trio gathered the stories of citizens of Aleppo, bringing a destroyed city back to life through the power of memory.