So Zuabi\u2019s return with Grey Rock<\/em>, under the auspices of the Remote Theater Project is an event much anticipated and it does not disappoint. Zuabi\u2019s seemingly simple productions carry timely and important meaning for audiences in the UK, Europe and the US. Through his projects and affiliations with the Young Vic, United Theatres Europe and the Sundance Institute Theater Program he presents the human face of the Palestinian people and their predicament.<\/p>\n Like the Belarus Free Theatre and their production Dogs of Europe<\/em> also playing in the festival this year, he is giving a voice and visibility to a population under siege; for men and women and children caught up in a grim geopolitical nightmare that has become abstracted, reductive and too bitter to unravel – as the heated fulminations around this year\u2019s Writer\u2019s Week demonstrated yet again.<\/p>\n Grey Rock<\/em> is as compelling as it is original. Yusuf, a grieving widower in his sixties, is a Palestinian TV repairman who has a secret mission. In fact, it is a space mission \u2013 to send a rocket to the moon. He has been working away in his shed, poring over blueprints and calculations, gathering materials and components, all sourced from the internet. No one has any idea, not even his loving daughter Lila, who thinks all his email writing might be him contacting a secret lady friend.<\/p>\n Fadel, a bright young high school graduate who has mysteriously turned down a scholarship to study in Houston, Texas, has been making the online deliveries to Yusuf and has enough physics and engineering know-how to guess something is going on.<\/p>\n Suspicions widen. Jawad, Lila\u2019s commercially-minded fianc\u00e9 is concerned Yusuf\u2019s activities will damage his father\u2019s business interests. Others suspect Yusuf, once imprisoned for publishing a dissenting political pamphlet, is now collaborating with the Israelis. Everyone is fearful of a reprisal of some kind from the authorities.<\/p>\n In no time the news is out that it is a rocket. Yusuf\u2019s argument and reasoning is inspiring. Literally inspiring, as he points to the first Moon Landing in 1969 and how it galvanised, not only the American people, but for a moment made the entire world look up to the heavens, above their usual irreconcilable differences.<\/p>\n I wondered about the title for this remarkable play. Google tells me that \u201cgrey rock-ing\u201d is a strategy:<\/p>\n To \u201cgrey rock\u201d a person involves making all interactions with them as uninteresting and unrewarding as possible<\/strong>. In general, this means giving short, straightforward answers to questions and hiding emotional reactions to the things a person says or does.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It is a way of becoming a minimal target. Necessary but also diminishing. After a while, the business of defending becomes all there is. This is Yusuf before we meet him, then Yusuf\u2019s plan is a reversal of that. He becomes pre-emptive and startling, with absurdity and quixotic human imagination.<\/p>\n In his director\u2019s notes Amir Nizar Zuabi writes \u2013 \u201cThis act, in a place like Palestine, is an impossible feat and carries the weight of a political act . It is defying the nature of oppression \u2013 to break free from the historical past \u2026and ignore the political present. It is a celebration of the human spirit, it is a celebration of freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n It is a zany plan full of impossibilities. Yusuf recites the catchcries of the Apollo program \u2013 JFK-isms like: we are doing it, not because it\u2019s easy, but because it is hard. It is the Mouse that Roared. It is a Rocket to the Moon.<\/p>\n And it is uplifting theatre. Tal Yarden\u2019s set design is simple and striking. The opening dialogue takes place in front of the curtain. When it is raised we glimpse into Yusuf\u2019s workshop (gloriously lit by Muaz Jubeh) with clotheslines pegged with transparencies and blueprints and a few gizmos pertaining to construction. The rocket, very aptly, is left entirely to our imagination.<\/p>\n The performances are delightfully engaging. Propelled by Zuabi\u2019s funny, sharp, heartfelt dialogue, the characters are vividly and memorably drawn. As Lila, Fidaa Zaidan captures the exasperation of a daughter who, with her late mother suffered for her father\u2019s sense of principle, and now wants to find a safe, dull uncomplicated husband in her fianc\u00e9, Jawad (played with broad but believable gusto by Alaa Shehada).<\/p>\n Luca Kamieh Chapman brings a likeable charm to Fadel, the young unworldly scholar who is captured by Yusuf\u2019s dream and even more by his daughter, and as Sheik, the iman from the mosque, Motaz Malhees brings a humanity and generosity to a cleric who might well have been Yusuf\u2019s fiercest adversary.<\/p>\n Much of the success of this fine production rests with the excellent Khalifa Natour as Yusuf. It is such a relaxed, comic, wise rendering of an ordinary man with an extraordinary plan. He speaks with wryly humorous simplicity and dignity about rebuilding the capacity to imagine and strive. He reminds us of the past glory of Arab science and echoes can-do American optimism as correctives to the oppressed mindset of occupation. His surprise strategy is not a weapon, it is an audacious, gone-viral-on-CNN, rocket of hope.<\/p>\n Copyright. murraybramwell.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Grey Rock Written and directed by Amir Nizar Zuabi Remote Theatre Project. Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre. March 10. Until March 12. We last saw the work of the remarkable writer and director Amir Nizar Zuabi at the Adelaide Festival in 2018. Touring then with his Palestinian ShiberHur Theatre Company, he presented two plays Azza and Taha both of which made an enduring impression for those fortunate enough to see them. So Zuabi\u2019s return with Grey Rock, under the auspices […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,5,11,19,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-45","category-archive","category-festival","category-international","category-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3515,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511\/revisions\/3515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\".\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Khalifa-Natour-as-Yusuf.jpg\")
\nKhalifa Natour as Yusuf. Photo: Roy VanDerVegt<\/em><\/div>\n![](\".\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Yusuf-and-unknown-Space-figure.jpg\")
\nYusuf and unknown Space figure. Photo: Roy VanDerVegt<\/em><\/div>\n![](\".\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Yusuf-and-Sheik-Motaz_Malhees.jpg\")
\nYusuf and Sheik (Motaz Malhees). Photo: Roy VanDerVegt<\/em><\/div>\n