I admit it was difficult to go to a play about the Middle East. Friends have dropped me, not for my opinions, but because of their assumptions about my opinions. I did not expect the humour of Two Birds One Stone, directed by Murdoch Schon, and the brilliant piecing together of the different narrative streams, which gave it a really Brechtian touch. Co-authored by two young women (Rimah Jabr and Natasha Greenblatt), one a Muslim Palestinian and one a Jewish Canadian, the dialogue was simple, direct, and elegantly demonstrated the universality of experience.
The show concerned the eternal search for identity and place, and the universal difficulties of daughter/mother, and granddaughter/grandmother relationships. There is also the search for historical icons, two symbolic houses in Israel/Palestine, which serves as a perfect metaphor for the conflicting interpretations of the history of that region.
It was wonderful to see the two actors move from character to narrator to self criticism in theatre mode. Dalia Charrafedine was able to humanize the impossible truth of living in an occupied land. Her reaction to meeting an Israeli soldier out of uniform and in a distant country made something clear: until there is peace there can be no genuine human interaction.
Natasha Perry-Fagant gave a masterful l performance as a young Jewish woman who goes to Israel and then visits the occupied West Bank. She objects to her Israeli guide that she will not take a bus which Palestinians may not board. The horrible truth of the apartheid of the state is elegantly demonstrated.
Throughout this performance, many issues are touched in the two narratives without any didactic rush of information. It is simply the stories of these two friends told in a beautiful way, without propaganda or noise. Teesri Duniya has cleverly adapted the theatre space to its particular style of political theatre. I am an old hand at these issues and even an old coot like I, was enlightened by this play. Do not miss it!
Two Birds One Stone is at 251 Avenue des Pins until November 5. Tickets HERE.
