April 19, 2014
By Laura Barnett
Four stars out of five!
Given the potential of theatre to appeal to at least four of the senses, it's surprising that more directors don't make use of the most evocative of them all: smell. Not so in this mesmerising hour-long play, written and directed by the Palestinian theatre-maker Amir Nizar Zuabi and performed by Corinne Jaber. The smell of gently frying onions rolls out across the theatre as Jaber – playing an unnamed woman, half-German, half-Syrian (like Jaber herself); wholly in love with Ashraf, a married Syrian man she has met in Paris – prepares kubah, the traditional dish she once watched her Syrian grandmother cook in their Munich kitchen. It is the scent of memory; the scent of a home she longs for, but has never known.
This is an inspired touch, and one of many careful details that root Zuabi's gorgeous lyricism in the here and now. Jaber and Zuabi researched the piece in the Syrian refugee camps of Jordan, and their efforts show. As Jaber's character travels to Lebanon and Jordan, looking for the vanished Ashraf, displaced Syrians tell her their stories. Some are horrific, some are bleakly funny: all have the ring of truth, and remind us of the infinite human ability to adapt to our circumstances, even in the middle of a war zone. Listening to them is both an intense theatrical experience, and an important act of bearing witness to the terrible conflict now unfolding just a couple of thousand miles away.