Why document and analyze theatre practices in these terrible times? The violent and indiscriminate attacks against Palestinian civilians, following Hamas's massacre and abduction of Israeli civilians on October 7th, have left much of the world angry and disheartened, and it is hard to know how to respond in a meaningful way. Participating in marches and civil disobedience, signing petitions and forwarding them to our social networks, heeding the Ashtar Theater’s call to mount The Gaza Monologues at our respective campuses—these feel like small gestures in the face of the enormous suffering of the people of Gaza. At this moment, it is especially hard to assert the importance of documenting and analyzing the theatre of the SWANA region and its diasporas. Why take time to review a site-specific theatre festival in Bethlehem? Or publish an interview with an Egyptian theatre director? My answer for why we publish is taken from Brecht: “The man who first looked with astonishment at a swinging lantern and instead of taking it for granted found it highly remarkable that it should swing… was brought close to understanding the phenomenon by this observation, and so to mastering it.” We live in a world in which it is taken for granted that a certain percentage of the population will live lives of deprivation and daily humiliation. It is rendered natural and unavoidable when it should inspire terrified astonishment. Theatre exists to restore such astonishment as a first step to mastering a world that would otherwise render us impotent. When there are no obvious and easily implemented solutions, we need artists to imagine entirely different structures and restructure our affective networks. Arab Stages exists to draw attention to the work of such artists.

Edward Ziter