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A scene from Justin Butcher’s play, Go To Gaza, Drink The Sea, currently at Theatro Technis |
Feud and drink: Gaza reaction on the stage
GO TO GAZA, DRINK THE SEA
Theatro Technis
ANGERED and concerned by the reports and images streaming out of Gaza during Israel’s January strikes, Justin Butcher decided to act. A play was the thing to catch the public’s conscience.
The playwright and thespian, who lives in Stroud Green, emailed hundreds of friends and supporters asking them for donations towards a dramatised account of the Palestinian experience during the conflict. If he could get £5,000 by the end of the week, the show would go on. The response was overwhelming.
“Amazingly, all of that money came in, and not only that but an enormous wave of enthusiasm, good will and endorsement of the idea,” he says.
“It was quite extraordinary; it felt as if it touched a nerve and that the play should happen.”
Butcher, 39, already had the backing of George Eugeniou, who had promised him the use of his theatre in Mornington Crescent, Theatro Technis, without overheads or stipulations. They had collaborated in 2003 on Butcher’s earlier political attack, The Madness of George Dubya. Four days of writing with the Palestinian author Ahmed Masoud, one week of rehearsals, a wing and prayer, and the finished work, Go to Gaza, Drink the Sea, is a challenging, sensory piece of theatre and video installation. Since it opened in the middle of February, it has provoked response from both sides. “A tableaux of grief and lamentation,” says Butcher, adding: “We never pretended to be objective. This is a Palestinian-British piece of theatre about the courage, dignity and suffering of the people of Gaza. And we’ve done exactly what it says on the tin.”
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