“The public hears a Palestinian voice. It is a strong act of resistance.” With his play “And here I am”, presented this week in Lyon, actor Ahmed Tobasi wants to “say that Palestinians still exist and also exist as artists”.
Ahmed Tobasi is an actor and director. Once engaged in armed struggle, he decided to bring the voice of his people to the theater. At 39, the Palestinian recounts his life, between armed struggle, prison, exile and discovery of the theater, in a play entitled “And Here I Am” (“and here I am”).
This 80-minute monologue written for Ahmed Tobasi by Iraqi author Hassan Abdulrazzak recounts his birth in a refugee camp in the West Bank, his armed engagement against Israel as a teenager, his four years in detention and his reconversion into the theater upon his release from prison, within the Freedom Theater in Jenin, in the West Bank. A story that goes as far as the assassination of the troupe’s director, his mentor.
It’s a true story, which talks about concrete things, situations which make us understand what it’s like to grow up for a young Palestinian.
The 39-year-old actor was marked by the Intifada (1987-1993 and 2000-2005). He was also arrested in 2002 after, according to him, failing to throw an explosive at an Israeli military vehicle. This slender man with a lively gaze has now given up weapons to “fight with the theater and art and evacuating violence”.
It was during his detention in Ktzi’ot prison (Negev desert in southern Israel) that he was “seeing how effective theater could be.” He imitated a famous series character in front of his fellow prisoners and he still remembers the uproar caused among the Israeli authorities, according to him, by the broadcast of videos showing him on stage. “It was a victory and I wanted to repeat it,” he recalls in an interview with AFP.
Produced in 2016, this play in Arabic and English, surtitled in French, has already been performed in England and France. It was presented in Lyon this week as part of the theater festival “Sens Interdit”known for its committed programming.
It was also performed in Bordeaux, after being postponed to Choisy-le-Roi, the day after the attack launched by the Islamist movement Hamas against Israel. “We know what postpone means…”says British director Zoe Lafferty, who fears that the performance of Choisy-le-Roi will never take place.
Dates are planned for November in Marseille and Bastia, but the program for the coming days remains uncertain, due to multiple financial difficulties, traffic constraints at the borders and “political pressures”, according to the British artist and comedian.
In Lyon, the play scheduled at the New Generation Theater (TNG) was moved at the last minute to the Subs, an experimental theater installed in a former wasteland converted into an artistic venue. Officially for “technical reasons”. “It’s not about being on the side of Palestine or Israel, it’s about giving artists a chance and saving them from the problems of politicians” in a war context, underlines actor Ahmed Tobasi.
When he leaves prison, some reject him for his label of “political prisoner”, groups of fighters approach him for the same reason. One of the rare dark scenes in the play, otherwise a morning of humor and irony, shows him dousing himself with the contents of a plastic container before approaching a lighter. Then the next scene shows him pushing open the door of the Jenin theater and changing his life.
I wanted to resist with the theater. I was tired of guns. I didn’t want to die. I don’t believe that killing can change reality.
However, he maintains a very committed speech. Israeli occupation “don’t we don’t let this work be done as we should”, he laments.
Throughout the play, he displays portraits of his friends, who died fighting the Israeli army or were murdered, on a blackboard placed at the back of the stage, facing the audience. A reminder of the walls of Jenin, decorated with portraits of this type. For those who prefer to fight on the boards rather than at the front, “it is not a matter about dying, it’s about staying alive and telling our story, for as long as possible.”
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