Show goes on at Palestinian theatres overcoming obstacles

Past the sandbags and anti-tank obstacles in Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, theatre director Mustafa Sheta ponders the fate of Palestinian thespians.

“We are under a very abnormal situation,” Sheta told AFP at the camp’s Freedom Theatre.

The streets were silent that December day as residents had called a public strike to protest Israeli forces killing a 16-year-old Palestinian girl in Jenin hours earlier.

With Israeli forces raiding Jenin repeatedly in recent months, engaging in gunfights with Palestinian militants, the Freedom Theatre’s ability to provide residents with respite is under growing strain.

In 2011, the theatre’s well-known Israeli-Palestinian director Juliano Mer-Khamis was gunned down in Jenin’s refugee camp, in an attack that remains unsolved. Other Palestinian cultural institutions across the West Bank, annexed east Jerusalem or Israel also face many obstacles.

“It’s not like you have a clear plan in your schedule... you need to prepare for different scenarios,” said Sheta, 42.

Ahead of the opening night of the theatre’s latest production, “Metro Gaza”, the creatives woke up to find three Palestinians had been killed in an Israeli operation.

“What can we do? Can we continue, or stop, cancel the show?” asked Sheta.

The actors took to the stage as planned and an audience of around 75 filled half the stalls.

Yasmin Shalaldeh, 30, a Jerusalemite who plays a Gazan girl in the show, said it was “essential to keep on working”, particularly in Jenin.

More than 40 Palestinians were killed last year during Israeli operations in the Jenin area, including militants, children, and a teenager involved in the theatre’s youth programme who was shot dead in November.

Funding ban

After Jenin, “Metro Gaza” went on tour to Ramallah, east Jerusalem and finally Haifa in northern Israel.

Each playhouse faces its own challenges and Jerusalem’s El-Hakawati, also known as the Palestinian National Theatre, has seen its audiences dwindle since Israel began constructing a barrier around the West Bank in the early 2000s.

“After the wall and the checkpoints, (it) started to get less and less, people cannot come,” said director Amer Khalil, as the sound of children enjoying a puppet show drifted into the room.

Whether living in Jerusalem, the West Bank, Israel or the blockaded Gaza Strip, Palestinians hold different papers which impact the ability of theatre casts and audiences to travel.

“It’s torture,” said Shalaldeh. “When you have a play in Jerusalem and you send it to someone from Gaza and they want to come, they can’t.”