For playwright Hannah Khalil, theatre can keep alive the memories of families from the occupied Palestinian territories and those displaced worldwide.
“Theatre can change the way people think. There’s something about having live people in front of you, breathing the same space as you, talking directly to you and you being part of a community, a collective,” she tells The National. "It can make you leave thinking something different, even wanting to take action."
Her play Trouf: Scenes from 75 Years remembers the Palestinian Nakba and will make its UK debut as part of London’s Shubbak Festival on Thursday.
The production, co-directed by Chris White and Ghazi Zaghbani, is composed of fragments of daily life in Palestine, as told to Khalil by family and friends of all ages. “It’s an epic snapshot of life under occupation,” she says.
The evolving theatre project, which began in 2016, was recently expanded to include snapshots from life in Tunisia during the Arab uprisings after Khalil attended a theatre festival there in 2019.
For example, there's a scene in which three women in Gaza are having a picnic and are pestered by Israeli soldiers, which also echoes the female Tunisian protestors of the 2011 demonstrations, who held picnic sit-ins outside parliament.
The play at London's Theatro Technis will be performed by its original cast of Tunisian actors, who will speak in Tunisian Derja vernacular Arabic, with closed caption equipment providing English translations.
For years, Khalil – who was born in London to an Irish mother and Palestinian father – shied away from writing about her father's homeland.
“I've never lived in Palestine. To write a massive play about Palestine and get it on stage in London, where there are so few opportunities for us to see stories that are truthful, felt like a big responsibility,” she says.
“The tricky thing about Palestine is it's as much a land of the imagination as it is a land of maps, because we know what's happening every day.”
Growing up in a household of mixed heritage has shaped her work.
While living in Dubai she spent her summers in Ireland and often felt like she didn’t belong anywhere. “You feel part of places and yet not part of them at the same time,” she says.
But it also allows her to step back from the stories that appear in her plays. “It means that you can look at a place slightly differently and make art or write about it in a way that you couldn't if you were totally embedded,” she says, referencing Salman Rushdie’s book Imaginary Homelands as an example.
“I’m proud of my heritage on both sides. A lot of people ask me if it’s a weird combination but they clearly don’t know their history. Both places were divided by colonialism,” she adds.
Khalil feels a responsibility to carry her family’s story through theatre and hopes the play will elicit the audience to keep remembering and telling stories of Palestine.
“All of us who are next generation, who are carrying historical – and continuing – trauma, there’s this sort of responsibility to tell that story, to carry it and pass it on, so that it isn’t forgotten,” she says. “The play does that to the audience.”
She became aware of the importance of this when her daughter Muna, 11, chose to write a poem about her grandfather’s migration from Palestine to London, via Kuwait, for a competition at the Migration Museum in Lewisham, a borough in south-east London.
This surprised Khalil – who said she’d been too busy to help with the project. “I only use odd words of Arabic at home, I cook maqluba, mussakhan and bamia, I make labneh, she knows I write about Palestine,” she says. “Slowly things started disappearing from the house. I was like where’s my jar of zaatar gone? Where is my tatreez? Where is the keffiyeh?”
It turns out, Muna had gathered the objects, interviewed her grandfather and then her mother. Her resulting poem Green, Black, White and Red won the museum’s competition.
But it is also served as a reminder to Khalil of the many Palestinian voices that go unheard.
“I feel a great deal of responsibility, all these people have given me their stories,” she says, “It’s a privilege to put my version of Palestine out into the world. And I don't forget that.”
Trouf: Scenes from 75 Years runs on Thursday and Friday at Theatro Technis, London. More information is available at www.shubbak.co.uk
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
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A timeline of the Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language
- 2018: Formal work begins
- November 2021: First 17 volumes launched
- November 2022: Additional 19 volumes released
- October 2023: Another 31 volumes released
- November 2024: All 127 volumes completed
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MIDWAY
Produced: Lionsgate Films, Shanghai Ryui Entertainment, Street Light Entertainment
Directed: Roland Emmerich
Cast: Ed Skrein, Woody Harrelson, Dennis Quaid, Aaron Eckhart, Luke Evans, Nick Jonas, Mandy Moore, Darren Criss
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Dust and sand storms compared
Sand storm
- Particle size: Larger, heavier sand grains
- Visibility: Often dramatic with thick "walls" of sand
- Duration: Short-lived, typically localised
- Travel distance: Limited
- Source: Open desert areas with strong winds
Dust storm
- Particle size: Much finer, lightweight particles
- Visibility: Hazy skies but less intense
- Duration: Can linger for days
- Travel distance: Long-range, up to thousands of kilometres
- Source: Can be carried from distant regions
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League, semi-final result:
Liverpool 4-0 Barcelona
Liverpool win 4-3 on aggregate
Champions Legaue final: June 1, Madrid
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
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Six tips to secure your smart home
Most smart home devices are controlled via the owner's smartphone. Therefore, if you are using public wi-fi on your phone, always use a VPN (virtual private network) that offers strong security features and anonymises your internet connection.
Keep your smart home devices’ software up-to-date. Device makers often send regular updates - follow them without fail as they could provide protection from a new security risk.
Use two-factor authentication so that in addition to a password, your identity is authenticated by a second sign-in step like a code sent to your mobile number.
Set up a separate guest network for acquaintances and visitors to ensure the privacy of your IoT devices’ network.
Change the default privacy and security settings of your IoT devices to take extra steps to secure yourself and your home.
Always give your router a unique name, replacing the one generated by the manufacturer, to ensure a hacker cannot ascertain its make or model number.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Racecard
6pm: Mina Hamriya – Handicap (TB) $75,000 (Dirt) 1,400m
6.35pm: Al Wasl Stakes – Conditions (TB) $60,000 (Turf) 1,200m
7.10pm: UAE Oaks – Group 3 (TB) $150,000 (D) 1,900m
7.45pm: Blue Point Sprint – Group 2 (TB) $180,000 (T) 1,000m
8.20pm: Nad Al Sheba Trophy – Group 3 (TB) $200,000 (T) 2,810m
8.55pm: Mina Rashid – Handicap (TB) $80,000 (T) 1,600m
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
Primera Liga fixtures (all times UAE: 4 GMT)
Friday
Real Sociedad v Villarreal (10.15pm)
Real Betis v Celta Vigo (midnight)
Saturday
Alaves v Barcelona (8.15pm)
Levante v Deportivo La Coruna (10.15pm)
Girona v Malaga (10.15pm)
Las Palmas v Atletico Madrid (12.15am)
Sunday
Espanyol v Leganes (8.15pm)
Eibar v Athletic Bilbao (8.15pm)
Getafe v Sevilla (10.15pm)
Real Madrid v Valencia (10.15pm)
Ponti
Sharlene Teo, Pan Macmillan
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Tips to stay safe during hot weather
- Stay hydrated: Drink plenty of fluids, especially water. Avoid alcohol and caffeine, which can increase dehydration.
- Seek cool environments: Use air conditioning, fans, or visit community spaces with climate control.
- Limit outdoor activities: Avoid strenuous activity during peak heat. If outside, seek shade and wear a wide-brimmed hat.
- Dress appropriately: Wear lightweight, loose and light-coloured clothing to facilitate heat loss.
- Check on vulnerable people: Regularly check in on elderly neighbours, young children and those with health conditions.
- Home adaptations: Use blinds or curtains to block sunlight, avoid using ovens or stoves, and ventilate living spaces during cooler hours.
- Recognise heat illness: Learn the signs of heat exhaustion and heat stroke (dizziness, confusion, rapid pulse, nausea), and seek medical attention if symptoms occur.
In numbers: China in Dubai
The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
