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Theater|Exploring the Roots of Mideast Turbulence Onstage
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/25/theater/lina-majdalanie-rabih-mroue-middle-east.html
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A retrospective in Paris honors Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroué, whose theater works have examined the region’s troubles for decades.
Sept. 25, 2024, 12:57 p.m. ET
The theater-makers Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroué have grown accustomed to life in exile. In 2013, the duo, who are creative as well as life partners, left their home country of Lebanon, to settle in Berlin — out of “fatigue,” Majdalanie said recently.
The corruption and the frequent crises that rocked the Middle Eastern country had become too draining, she added. “When you see the same problems repeating themselves over and over again, you need distance to find peace,” she said.
The move worked — until the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel last year. Israel’s subsequent offensive in Gaza had a devastating knock-on effect on its relations with Lebanon, which is home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees and their descendants.
Majdalanie and Mroué, who have long investigated Middle Eastern conflicts onstage, were critical of Israel’s retaliation. That made life uncomfortable in Germany, where many artists who find fault with Israel have, since Oct. 7, faced an increasingly hostile environment and accusations of antisemitism.
“Lebanon was home, then Berlin was home for a decade,” Majdalanie said. “Now, every day, we ask ourselves: Where to go now? Because we don’t know where home is anymore.”
For the next three months, they will have a temporary refuge in France. Through December, the Festival d’Automne à Paris, a long-running multidisciplinary event, is hosting a retrospective that showcases Majdalanie and Mroué’s longstanding commitment to grappling with contested political narratives.
