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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=3 color=black face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'>Political Theater</span><o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:12.75pt'><b><i><font size=2 color=red
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:red;font-weight:bold;font-style:italic'><span id=lbTitle2>Ban is set to
be lifted on a new play about the Civil War</span> <o:p></o:p></span></font></i></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><font size=1 color=black face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:black;font-style:italic'><span
id=lbAuthor>Benjamin Ryan, NOW Staff </span><o:p></o:p></span></font></i></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><a href="http://www.nowlebanon.com/Print.aspx?ID=11199">http://www.nowlebanon.com/Print.aspx?ID=11199</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=1 color=black face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:black'><br>
<img border=0 width=420 height=280 id="_x0000_i1029"
src="cid:image001.jpg@01C7EA9F.E4685190" title="Political Theater"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'></span><st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><font size=1 color=black face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:black'><span
id=lbPicCaption>Lebanon</span></font></st1:place></st1:country-region><font
size=1 color=black face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:
"Trebuchet MS";color:black'> has long been the city upon a hill for the Arab
world when it comes to free expression. According to the International Press
Institute, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>
is “traditionally recognized as having the most liberal and outspoken media in
the region.” Yet that reputation can sometimes obscure the censorship that does
take place in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>:
As playwrights Rabih Mroué and Fadi Toufiq discovered this past month,
sometimes you have to fight for your right to put on a play.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><font size=1 color=black
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:black'>After a brief battle with the General Security censors, their play
about the Lebanese civil war, <em><i><font face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-family:"Trebuchet MS"'>How Nancy Wished That Everything Was an
April Fool’s Joke</span></font></i></em>, was unceremoniously banned in <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
According to a press release from the play’s backers distributed on Thursday,
the play was originally submitted for approval in mid-July of this year. On
July 31, they received a letter from the Director General of General Security,
Wafiq Jezzini, informing them that the play had been rejected. When they asked
for an explanation, they were told that the play “might trigger civil turmoil”
and “name names.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><font size=1 color=black
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:black'>The play’s producers called on Culture Minister Tarek Mitri to
lobby the General Security directorate as well. In response, Mitri’s office
issued a statement on Saturday, August 25, saying that he saw no reason that
the play should be banned. As a result of his efforts, the cabinet will take up
the issue the night of August 27 and is expected to overturn the ban. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><font size=1 color=black
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:black'>Interestingly, that means that the government will be overturning
an opposition ruling: Although the media censorship board is technically part
of the Ministry of the Interior, in practice, the bureau it falls under,
General Security, is believed to respond to March 8, rather than the pro-March
14 Interior Minister Hassan Sabeh. Whether this controversy is another spat in
the struggle between the government and the opposition is unclear, however, as
the play itself is not inherently more damaging to one side or another.
Requests for comment from the Interior Ministry were referred to the General
Security directorate.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on"><font size=1 color=black face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:
9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:black'>Nancy</span></font></st1:place></st1:City><font
size=1 color=black face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:
"Trebuchet MS";color:black'> co-author Fadi Toufiq told NOW Lebanon that the
Interior Ministry "didn't clarify the reasons" the play was initially
banned. "They just gave a general cliché about unity and society or something,
that this [play] would motivate people to fight each other."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><font size=1 color=black
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:black'>Playwright Lina Khoury also tangled with the government censors
last year over her play inspired by <em><i><font face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-family:"Trebuchet MS"'>the Vagina Monologues</span></font></i></em>,
“Haki Niswan.” Like <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Nancy</st1:place></st1:City>’s
producers, Khoury ended up appealing to Mitri, who made a complaint with the
General Security bureau on her behalf. “He didn’t know me before, but he was
very helpful.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><font size=1 color=black
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:black'>Khoury had much more feedback from her censors, however. After
more than a year of negotiations over the script, often going paragraph by
paragraph and line by line, Khoury was able to open a modified version of the
play that the censors could accept. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><font size=1 color=black
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:black'> “Ordinarily it takes about 10 days for them to reply. The
censors did reply after 10 days, but only to tell me that the version in their
hands was not acceptable.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><font size=1 color=black
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:black'>Her application was also delayed in part by the Hariri
assassination. “I gave them four or five months where I didn’t press them, and
plus there was a new director general who came into office,” she recalled. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><font size=1 color=black
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:black'>The Media Censorship office is charged with clearing all plays as
well as written and broadcast media in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>. They can yank anything
that threatens state security or violates the law, though the criteria
determining what is or is not permissible are not entirely clear. Artists do
not have a list of regulations or laws to refer to before submitting their work
to the General Security offices. As elsewhere, sex, politics, and religion are
reliably touchy subjects, and in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region>
the trifecta invariably overlap – particularly as <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s confessional system
ensures that any religious controversy is also inherently political – and vice
versa. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><font size=1 color=black
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:black'>Khoury acknowledged the difficulties, saying, “Because we live in
a society, we have to have some rules and guidelines – people must have the
knowledge and intelligence to know when to bend the rules. I have a PhD in
this, so I know what I'm doing. And the people making the decisions must work
with the artists to figure out what works or doesn't.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><font size=1 color=black
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:black'>Yet differing political factions attack each other daily in
Lebanese news outlets and billboards, racy music videos and outright
pornography are available via satellite TV, and unrestricted internet access is
available at home or in thousands of internet cafes. In such an age, it seems
odd that plays should receive so much scrutiny. Is the theater that dangerous?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on"><font size=1 color=black face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:
9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:black'>Nancy</span></font></st1:place></st1:City><font
size=1 color=black face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:
"Trebuchet MS";color:black'> does cover sensitive territory. Mroué’s and
Toufiq’s play explores the Lebanese civil war through the eyes of a rotating
series of militia members, played by a cast of four actors sitting together on
a couch. Each character tells a story in which they are killed in battle,
overlapping with the stories of the other characters around them. The narrative
is veritably Cubist; each perspective is presented with total sincerity,
despite their frequent contradictions. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><font size=1 color=black
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:black'>Of course, the major problem with telling the story of the
Lebanese civil war is that <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>
has never come to a consensus about what that story is. With political tensions
high as the presidential elections draw near, any potentially divisive work is
given extra scrutiny.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><font size=1 color=black
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:black'>But Toufiq believes that rather than being divisive, the play is
beneficial to the reconciliation process. "[Lebanese in the diaspora] feel
it's essential to talk about the Civil War, to deal with this deplorable
history, not to close our eyes and not talk about it because it's
dangerous."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><font size=1 color=black
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:black'>Toufiq added, "I worked as a journalist and I know that most
Lebanese aren't afraid to talk about the Civil War, they don't agree that
talking about it will make it happen again.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><font size=1 color=black
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:black'>Christine Tohme of Ashkal Alwan, the play’s producer, concurred:
"I think it's the history that we have to deal with. I think that the
Sûreté Générale’s reaction is definitely affected by the political situation;
but I believe that we are capable of dealing with our history, and it is
essential that we talk about it. Anyway, there shouldn’t be any kind of
censorship on cultural production."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><font size=1 color=black
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:black'>"Everywhere in the world war memorials are made. The play is
kind of addressing the fact that war in general is absurd, and banal. The
events mentioned in the play have been published in newspapers."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><font size=1 color=black
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:black'>In his press release, Mitri agreed as well, stating, “Talking
about the facts of history, rather than making it up as some politicians and
writers do, helps us to heal.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><font size=1 color=black
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:black'> “The General Security directorate says they are just
following the law, but I don’t see it that way. In any case, I am working on
changing [the censorship laws].”<br>
<br>
In the grand Lebanese tradition, the <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><em><i><font
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-family:"Trebuchet MS"'>Nancy</span></font></i></em></st1:place></st1:City>
team has already taken its talents overseas. The play ran in <st1:City w:st="on">Tokyo</st1:City>
this past spring, and future performances are scheduled for <st1:City w:st="on">Rome</st1:City>,
<st1:City w:st="on">Paris</st1:City>, <st1:City w:st="on">Cairo</st1:City> and <st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Rabat</st1:place></st1:City>. With publicity
built up around the play and the government now expected to act, the play is
tentatively scheduled to show in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:City>
on Thursday, August 30.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='text-align:justify;line-height:12.0pt'><font size=1 color=black
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:black'>One can only hope it does, and that Mitri’s work on censorship
laws comes to fruition. It seems so much of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region
w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s history has been decided
beyond its borders – it would be a shame if it was only remembered there as
well.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<div style='mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;
padding:0pt 0pt 1.0pt 0pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='border:none;padding:0pt'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><i><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial;font-style:italic'>More about the play… <o:p></o:p></span></font></i></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><img border=0 width=600 height=242 id="_x0000_i1030"
src="cid:image002.jpg@01C7EA9F.E4685190"><img border=0 width=343 height=68
id="_x0000_i1067" src="cid:image003.jpg@01C7EA9F.E4685190" style='margin-bottom:
10px;margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-top:0px'
alt="Rabih Mroue HOW NANCY WISHED THAT EVERYTHING WAS AN APPRIL FOOL’S JOKE Written and directed by Rabih Mroue Mar.23-27 Nishi-sugamo Arts Factory A provocative multimedia performance by a Lebanese prodigy. The world premier of awaited new production."><img
border=0 width=600 height=81 id="_x0000_i1031"
src="cid:image004.jpg@01C7EA9F.E4685190" style='margin-bottom:10px;margin-left:
0px;margin-right:0px;margin-top:0px'
alt="Rabih Mroue HOW NANCY WISHED THAT EVERYTHING WAS AN APPRIL FOOL’S JOKE Written and directed by Rabih Mroue Mar.23-27 Nishi-sugamo Arts Factory A provocative multimedia performance by a Lebanese prodigy. The world premier of awaited new production."><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=programoutline style='background:white'><font size=2 face="MS PGothic"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:180%'>Rabih Mroue is a Lebanese artist who
works ubiquitously across the borders of theater, visual art, fine art and
music and triggers a storm in the global art community. The provocation is
almost to the limit of censorship, and exquisite humor relentlessly represents
and destructs the faults and contradictions of Lebanese society that he belongs
to and fiercely criticizes its fictitiousness. Then, what potential remains in
arts? What is the role of the “individual” living in a community? The awaited
new production from <st1:City w:st="on">Beirut</st1:City> after the nightmare
in the summer of 2006 is anticipated to be a cross of “stories = histories” of
individuals and society, reflecting the situation in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region> which is changing every
moment. This new production is co-produced by Tokyo International Arts Festival
and Festival d’Automne <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Paris</st1:place></st1:City>.
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'><img border=0 width=600 height=40 id="_x0000_i1032"
src="cid:image005.gif@01C7EA9F.E4685190" style='padding-bottom:8px;padding-left:
0px;padding-right:0px;padding-top:0px' alt="Cast/Staff"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=programtext style='background:white'><font size=2 face="MS PGothic"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:120%'>Text: Fadi Toufic and Rabih Mroué<br>
Directed by: Rabih Mroué<br>
Performed by: Lina Saneh, Hatem El-Imam, Ziad Antar and Rabih Mroué<br>
Set design, graphics: Samar Maakaroun<br>
Animation: Ghassan Halwani<br>
Theoretical consultant: Jalal Toufic<br>
Assistant director: Hania Mroué<br>
Video Installation: <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lamia</st1:place></st1:City>
Joreige<br>
Poster collection and research: Ziena Maasri<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=1 face=Arial><span style='font-size:8.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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