Grey Rock
Remote Theater Project
11 October 2019
Merlyn Theatre
to 12 October
www.festival.melbourne
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| "Grey Rock". Remote Theater Project |
A former TV repairman is building a rocket in a small village in the West Bank in Palestine. The only place big enough to hide its building and launch it a mosque.
A man finds a way to show love and hope to his daughter and the world after the death of his wife.
Grey Rock is a story about living in an occupied land but isn't about occupation. It's a deeply personal and domestic story about connection. In this case, how Yusef (Khalifa Natour) has more computer capacity on his smart phone now than the US team that sent that first rocket to the moon in 1969. So he sets about making a rocket in secret. He's helped by a local man who makes deliveries (Ivan Azazian) and his Iman (Motaz Malhees), as his daughter (Fidaa Zaidan) and her fiancé (Alaa Shehada) try to discover what he's doing. Eventually the world finds out.
The Remote Theater Project was founded by Alexandra Aron in 2018. Based in New York, it commissons artists who are geographically or politically isolated to develop new work and tour internationally.
Grey Rock was written and directed by Amir Nizar Zuabi from Palestine and is performed and created by people from all over the Palestinian territories, except Gaza. Written in English for an American audience, it was developed in Palestine and first performed in New York at La MaMa Theater in January this year; some of the cast had only performed in Arabic before. It's heading back to the USA after this Melbourne season.
It takes a while to settle into the pace and gentleness of the story – and a lot of its intimacy is lost is the Merlyn – but it sneaks into your heart as its truth becomes clear and its impossibility becomes so believable that it's impossible to not look at the, nearly, full moon when you leave the theatre.
