The deadly explosion in Beirut on August 4 was compared to 15 years of war in 15 seconds by Lebanon’s ambassador to the UN, Amal Mudallali.
“It has been hell,” says Sahar Assaf, an actor, director and theater professor at the American University of Beirut. ‘We are still in disbelief and trying to understand what happened. Every day we learn about a new loss, a new story. Assaf works to support artists through the crisis. ‘It feels like time stopped at the moment of the explosion. It is devastating to see all the destruction. ”
How are you rebuilding the country amid economic collapse and coronavirus? The Lebanese people immediately took to the streets and mobilized. They did not wait for instructions (and they would never come), they picked up brooms and began to wipe puns. Free feeding points and human chains passing heavy articles over the steep stairs of Achrafieh evoked memories of the long human chain formed during the October Revolution.
The Theater Relief Group in Lebanon (TRG) was founded and organized by more than 100 theater artists. “We all came together two days after the explosion in a state of emergency to try to remember how we can best support our other artists who were injured and those who lost their homes or means of income.”
Almost every Beirut theater is now in a state of decay following the explosion. This includes the Sunflower Theater, founded in the 1970s by award-winning actor Roger Assaf (no relation to Sahar), and Al-Madina Theater in Hamra, where both Assafs are collaborating on a 2016 King Lear production, the first time Shakespeare was performed in Lebanese sociable Arabic.
Keeping power in mind is a theme in Sahar Assaf’s work, such as providing a space to reflect on trauma and rehabilitation through theater. Last May, she was in New York, with her three-month-old baby on tow, presenting No Demand, No Supply at the Between the Seas festival. This documentary gave voice to the victims in the largest ring of sexual trafficking in Lebanon. This documentary aspect of her work began in 2014 when Assaf made Watch Your Step, a theatrical walk through Beirut that illuminated the repressed memories of the Civil War. In 2018, Assaf’s promenade performance of Lorca’s Blood Wedding began at Hammana Artist House before moving to spaces across the village for residents to walk, dance, party and see together.
“We have always had to take matters into our own hands, but in times like these stand together and become a responsibility to each other, a survival mechanism,” says Assaf. “TRG aims to support the artists to regain their strength and to be able to return to creating the art that their communities need. We must survive first. Then we can tell the stories that help us to understand our realities, express our anger and suggest alternative commands. We need time to mourn the loss of life and the loss of our city. ”
The TRG is an “artist-to-artist initiative” with people raising money and distributing the money to colleagues in need and it is important for Assaf “to provide help while protecting the dignity and pride of the artists “.
The group’s first fundraising event is already underway. Beirut, No Show Tonight is described as “a show that will not take place” and tickets are available on a donate-what-you-can-do basis; $ 3,500 of the $ 20,000 target was increased in the first week.
The TRG includes artists Hanane Hajj Ali, Sany Abdul Baki, Abdullah AlKafri and Karim Dakroub. If these artists could take the stage, the audience would have an extraordinary evening. Lebanon’s international profile is booming. Last year, Hajj Ali performed her solo show, Jogging, on a European tour including the Shubbak Festival in London, and troops such as Zoukak are internationally acclaimed. Assaf says: ‘It has been so heartwarming to receive all the positive and encouraging messages from our international fellow artists. Theater unites and therefore we need it to survive and flourish. ”
Just weeks before the explosion, Assaf had been part of the digital edition of Director Lab Mediterranean, a program endorsed by the Lincoln Center in New York that she co-founded in 2018.
Can Assaf see the future of her practice once healing has begun to take effect? ‘I have experienced many disasters in my 40 years in my country, but the extent of this is like nothing else. Like many, I feel happy to be alive and thankful that my loved ones are not harmful, but I can not help but feel guilty. The ‘what if’ scenarios are unbearable. The explosion did not necessarily change how I feel about theater, but it did change me as a human being and so it will eventually change my theater if I can get back into it. ‘
