IMAN & EMILE
Could you tell us a little bit about yourselves and what it is that you do with Ashtar Theatre?
EMILE SABA: “Ashtar Theatre is based out of Ramallah, in the West Bank, but the theatre was originally established in Jerusalem in 1991. It started out as a professional theatre, but also the first acting school for young people in Palestine. Actually, we continue to be. We specialise in the Theatre of the Oppressed, so a lot of our work involves socio-political themes as we work with different groups of people – from different age groups to remote village communities.
My name is Emile Saba, and I’m the artistic director. I actually started out as a student at Ashtar. I was a young actor and, after I got my master’s degree, I came back to Ashtar about two years ago and have been working here ever since. In Palestine, and in Ramallah especially, I see the impact that theatre has on kids. Having this outlet, which is a safe space to express and connect with both themselves and others, is so important.”
IMAN AOUN: “My name is Iman, and I’ve been a theatre-maker since ‘84. Mainly, I’ve been an actress. However, I started to become more involved in ’91 and, together with my partner Edward Muallem, we created Ashtar Theatre. I grew alongside my students and my colleagues and ended up developing my interest in directing and in playwriting. Now, I’m the executive director of the theatre. We are a small autonomous theatre company being both non-governmental and not-for-profit. Like many others in the industry, we do it all and don’t really have the luxury of lots of money or hundreds of employees. I go to sleep and wake up in the morning always concerned with what is happening with our theatre and within our society. There is part of it that is passion and part of it that is this sense of urgency and responsibility towards our society. We believe that we are very much connected to our people and that we are there to really support them and learn from them. Not only that, but we also walk hand-in-hand with them. We have to really think ahead and be proactive in order to be able to create real change within our society.
The most important role of theatre in general, and Ashtar Theatre in particular, lies in the importance of enhancing critical thinking. It helps give a platform to the youth that we work with and to our audience to critically look into their lives and ask critical questions. The day that we stop asking questions to ourselves – what we’re doing, who we are, where we’re heading, et cetera – is the day we stop pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zones and stop finding new ideas and new solutions. Then we’re dead in terms of our philosophy, our passion and in our role and approach to life. These are exactly the kind of transformative tools that we try to share with our students and our audiences. It’s really up to them. I mean, we don’t tell them what to think; it’s not up to us to tell them. Instead, we aim to inspire them to continuously question everything. What is real, not only for your mind, but also for your heart and for your body? I think, living in more traditional and conservative societies, we tend to forget this and we just channel what we hear, what we’re “supposed to do,” and go with the flow. Taking the time to stop and think, freeze and take action, is a critical part of our theatre technique that trains young people to be aware, alert, and deliberate.”
Do you struggle with any kind of pushback while doing your work?
IMAN: “Since the beginning of the Occupation in ’48, people from different parts of Palestine have been unable to easily communicate with each other or travel back and forth from one place to another. There’s no freedom of commute or transportation; that’s one of the major problems everyone faces, of course, but it also challenges us as performers. When we want to go on tour, it becomes a nightmare to contemplate how to get from one city to another. It’s another nightmare wondering how – if – we can ever get to Jerusalem. I live in Jerusalem now, and Emile is in Ramallah. However, I spend three hours on the road to and from work every day. And Emile cannot come to Jerusalem because he’s from the West Bank and holds a West Bank ID card. He cannot even enter. Just imagine, apart from anything else, we also have to think if we can even get to the next village or city. This is one major challenge that we face on a daily basis.
For example, in July, Emile directed a newly-written play, and they were supposed to go to London and Oxford to perform it. However, they were not given permission to enter Jerusalem in order to proceed with their visas. In the end, despite preparing two months or more for that visa, they were not able to even leave the country simply because they could not enter Jerusalem in order to take it. This is also an issue we sometimes deal with when working with remote villages and communities in the West Bank. A while ago, we had a program that we wanted to implement in the Jordan Valley. However, we’ve been cut off from that place for over two years now. We’ve had to change the whole aspect of the program and bring it back to Ramallah because we’re now unable to reach that community. The people feel this oppression, this continuous oppression on a daily basis. That frustration, that anger, then is accumulated within our psychology. People love to say: “Oh, the Palestinians are so violent.” No, we’re not violent because we choose to be violent. If we’re violent, it’s because everything around us is pushing us to be. When we work with the Theatre of the Oppressed, it’s not the symptom that we look at it, it’s the cause. We really try to dig deep and convey this in order to mend these wounds.”
EMILE : “Ashtar is designed as a safe space. Our students come from everywhere in Palestine, and they find a place where they can express themselves freely and without judgement. Of course, they can’t really find that elsewhere now that we’re under genocide. Every day, there’s a lot of risk and unsafety both on the roads and in the sky. Our students show up regardless, though. In August, we had a summer camp for 30 days. We had 16 participants from across the West Bank, and we saw a lot of change happening to their personalities. It really has a great impact, and people who’ve tried theater at least once realise this.
But, of course, we also face a lot of challenges. Israel functions in so many different ways, you know, and there are often huge attacks on culture. This one time, we hosted a street parade, and we were attacked. But, the local community who knows culture is important stood by us. It’s resistance, a culture of resistance. We exist and therefore we make theater. We make theater, therefore we exist. We realised how important we are to our society. There’s a lot of people who rely on us. So, we did not stop. We continued. We function in a very absurd reality to say the least.”
Could you describe for us the most emotionally-impactful creative project that you’ve worked on to date?
IMAN: “There’s many of them, of course. One of them, in particular, is the Gaza Monologues in 2009/2010. I don’t want to call it a project because, for me, it was not simply a project because it dealt with people’s lives. It became a platform for the young people to express what they felt and what they went through during the assault on Gaza. We started by working with 100 young people aged 14 to 18 who had been affected by the war as a way of using drama and theater techniques to shield them from PTSD. In 2010, we compiled the Monologues into a book that has been translated from Arabic into 18 different languages.
Through these monologues, the group in Gaza were able to find a safe haven within a space that was literally burning. I’m grateful that they continued to be a genuine part of Ashtar Theatre. They continued to be our students, they continued to study, and they continued working with our theatre in Gaza. They grew into real strong individuals that are aware of what their lives demand of them. This is the kind of possibility that the theatre can give and facilitate.
We ended up presenting the Gaza Monologues to the UN General Assembly in front of many UN ambassadors. While I was there, I felt like I was able to reach the top, the crème de la crème. But, then, the real shock happened two years later when another war on Gaza happened. And then again. Another war happened every two years there. I realised that I was naïve to think that politicians could really care. So, although they cried with us, clapped for us, and hugged us, it all ended up being just another piece of theater.
In 2023, 62 countries – thousands of people across the globe — answered our call to read the monologues simultaneously. It’s still going on. Every day, every week, there is something happening somewhere around the globe. This year, on November 29th, there will be another reading of the book. We have asked our global network to also write to the Gazans. So many people have already written letters and poems to Gaza. We also contacted some of the original writers of the Monologues and asked them again, in light of recent developments, to let the world know what they want to say.”
EMILE: “I would also say the Gaza Monologues impacted me. I was actually an actor in the Monologues, and I remember feeling like there was this huge responsibility on my shoulders. It felt like the right merge between art and politics. I remember, through different performances in different countries around the world, that people got emotional. They finally connected and saw us as human beings. They started to learn more about Palestine and about Gaza.
We recently made a new call to read the Gaza Monologues again. The testimonies written by those kids 14 years ago is nothing compared to what’s happening today. But, it still moves people and encourages them to do something. Recently, people read the Monologues outside of the United Nations in New York City when Netanyahu visited. It is still a very strong example of how impactful theater can be. In this dire time, seeing that people still come to watch theater is very inspiring to me. It just gives me a lot of life. I find that we Palestinians love life and we resist in all shapes and forms. One of them is going to watch a play during the war. We just enjoy being together and feeling together and connecting together, I think.”
If you could give yourself one piece of advice 20 years ago, knowing what you know now, what would it be?
EMILE: “I would tell my younger self to do more, I think. Maybe I would tell him to start theatre even earlier than I actually did? In terms of being inspired by the Gaza Monologues’ authors, I feel like we grow up believing that you earn credibility at a certain age, and that, at that point, you’re finally valid and your voice actually matters. But, that’s not real. I would reassure myself that I chose the right path in theater, for sure.”
IMAN: ”I wish I would’ve done more drama therapy, to be honest. I was probably the first person to introduce psychodrama in the West Bank about 40 years ago. I worked a little bit with psychodrama, but then I stopped. Instead, I went more into theater-making: training, acting, directing, et cetera. However, I’ve always felt that drama therapy is an important tool when you are living under Occupation. It’s a very important tool in healing people. We use it all the time, in fact, when we do psychosocial interventions. For this reason, I would advise my younger self to go visit mental health wards more and work more with the people there either on an individual basis or help with their very delicate situations.”