17.6 What has been written by Lebanese and/or about Lebanon?
Description
This article is from the Lebanon FAQ, by Alaa Dakroub dakroub@leb.net with numerous contributions by others.
17.6 What has been written by Lebanese and/or about Lebanon?
Here is a review that recently appeared in TIME magazine of Ziad Rahbani's
latest play:
>From TIME Magazine (May 31, 1993)
SIGHTINGS by Emily Mitchell (p.61)
THEATER Lebanon
You Gotta Have Wasta
"Of Dignity and Stubborn Folk"
Written and Directed by Ziad Rahbani
ACT I: BEIRUT, 1998.
Syrian and Israeli troops have withdrawn from Lebanon, and the
country can determine its own fate. But greed is ascendant, and
mayhem is at hand. In kaleidoscopic scenes, belly dancers
alternate with news flashes and fake TV commercials, while people
boast of their "wasta" (connections). When an old Armenian is
electrocuted trying to repair a generator that is the only power
source, an announcement is made: " He was the last Armenian in
Lebanon - nothing technical will work again . "
ACT II: BEIRUT, 2003.
Though the country is in its death throes, sectarianism has not
expired. Animals join the few surviving Lebanese, and an
orangutan wants to vote. "What is your religion?" the humans
demand. Cannibals garbed in animal skin- and holding
walkie-talkies - proclaim a new credo:" We only eat our
friends."
In this bleak, gallows-humor play, Ziad Rahbani parodies Lebanese
society and evokes the pessimism of Orwell's 1984. The daily
"Hayat" notes that "Rahbani is like those animals that feel the
earthquake before it happens."
"Of Dignity and Stubborn Folk" is selling out in Beirut's
620-seat Piccadilly Theater, and audiences sense that the tremors
may already have begun.
There is Charles Glass's book "tribes with flags", an
account of his travels from Iskandaron to lebanon (i.e. until he was
kidnapped).
ISBN 0-87113-457-8
there is one part of the book that you might enjoy, a brief
description of the Levant. (note: Levant are the eastern coasts of the
Mediterranean)
"The battlefields were also vineyards, and fruit trees sprouted from
ancient graves. Where men had drawn swords, hurled spears and fired
automatic rifles, children played. Rivers that armies had forged in
the night to surround an enemy provided family picnic sites. The sea
in which navies displayed their cannon was beautiful to look at and
cool to swim in. With what little there was from the land and sea,
the people made their lives rich and lavish. The divisions that
were a source of conflict also gave wealth...In a small area, there
seems to be the sights, sounds and smells of all the world"
another interesting quote
"A man may find Naples or Palermo merely pretty
but the deeper violet, the splendor
and desolation of the Levant waters
is something that drives into the soul."
James Elroy Flecker (British poet)
Beirut, October 1914
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