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Dolya Gavanski (Elena) |
Stories from Damascus
DAMASCUS
Tricycle Theatre
DAVID Greig is the kind of playwright more interested in politics than spinning a good yarn. Damascus is weak on plot but this is not necessarily a problem; it is set in the Middle East, where politics frustrate most things, including nice, conventional storylines.
Paul, a Scotsman played by Paul Higgins (The Thick of It), has written a politically correct English language textbook called Middleton Road.
He wants to show Britain in a modern, multicultural light, and so the book explores the pluperfect and future tenses by way of dialogues between characters with names like Mrs Muhammad and Rabbi Samuels.
In the lobby of a Damascus hotel, complete with piano and Arabian water feature and brought to life by way of brilliant set design, Paul struggles to convince schoolteacher Muna (Nathalie Armin) to use Middleton Road in her classes.
This being Syria, Muna takes issue with the “individualistic behaviour” of the book’s characters, which is out of step both with official Ba’ath Party policy and Arab culture.
Muna’s discussions with Paul are revealing and anything but clichéd. It is the illustrations in the book, depicting Mrs Muhammad with her faced veiled by a niqab, that anger her most.
“You shouldn’t link tolerance with fundamentalism,” she states, arguing that the veil subjugates women and raging against the so-called honour killings that have been carried out in Britain, which she says do not happen under the anti-Islamist dictatorship of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
This is brave stuff, and it is to Greig’s credit that he gets stuck into hefty issues without getting bogged down in them.
Paul becomes enamoured with Muna, resulting in a romantic subplot that fails to convince.
Hotel receptionist Zakaria’s fascination with “free” western women provides comedic distraction, but he is secretly in turmoil as his religious values conflict with his desires.
Damascus is full of such conflicts. Wry hotel pianist Elena plays Hollywood ditties as screens broadcast footage of Israeli war planes and prisoners in orange jumpsuits.
How long, Greig seems to be asking, can conflicts be bottled up before there is an explosion?
Until March 7
020 7328 1000 |
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