"Convergence" a Breakthrough Drama of Arab/Israeli Tragedy, Hopes, Despair

By Pat McDonnell Twair

from: WRMEA

Playwright Shakir Yusif Farsakh proves he is a master of character development in his two-act drama, "Convergence." In a small Los Angeles theater, the audience's empathy for the players was palpable. This was no small feat, considering that the two protagonists are the commander of a suicide bomb brigade and a colonel in an occupying army.

The world premiere of this provocative work ran for 21 performances at the Lex in Hollywood, under the auspices of the Blue Sphere Alliance. Artistic director Anthony Barnao plans to reopen a revised version of the ensemble production in January.

"I grew up in Brooklyn, where I knew plenty of Jews," stated the award-winning director, "but not once in all my student years did I read or hear anything about Palestine or its people. I associated Palestinians with suicide bombs, and that was about it."

Until, that is, early 2003, when actress Sarah Ripard approached Barnao with the "Convergence" script, which she had been holding onto for a couple of years. She knew it wouldn't be a commercial success, she told Barnao, but it had an important message.

Barnao liked it, and asked a Jewish colleague to read it. She assured him the script was balanced.

Farsakh holds the right credentials for telling the story of two people claiming the same land. His father is Palestinian, his mother Jewish, and he was born in Beirut. From his home in New York City, the playwright worked long-distance with Barnao in revising and rewriting the script. Ripard and her producer husband, Kaspian Black, took over stewardship of producing the play for Blue Sphere Alliance, a multi-ethnic company of artists reflecting the cultural diversity of Los Angeles.

After two months of rehearsals, "Convergence" opened this past Sept. 11. It pulled in full houses throughout its run.

Barnao was surprised and gratified by the reaction of audiences, particularly that of many Jews, who commented that "Convergence" enabled them to see from a Palestinian perspective. A discussion followed a matinee performance this writer attended. The first comment came from a handsome, middle-aged man, who confessed that watching the play was a profound experience, second only to the birth of his daughters.

The stage is set on the left with a basement room of a bombed-out house in Ramallah. On the right is an Israeli military office in Tel Aviv. A watchtower is silhouetted on the backdrop for a center platform on which stand three figures: Mahmoud Yacoub (Roy Avigdori), leader of a suicide bomb brigade; a spirit dancer (Maya G. Karasso) who, attired in turban and veils, dances in the memory of Hagar and Sarah; and, to the right, Col. Amos Eitan (Herzl Tobey).

Staring at the audience, Eitan speaks: "I see my land. Not much to you, maybe, but my heart is here. This earth, these trees, these rocks, these homes are ours. Where you see desert and packed ground and too much sun, I see a fertile land infused with the dreams and hopes of the Jewish people. The home we lost long ago."

Yacoub: "I see my land. Not this squalor. This refugee camp overgrown with garbage and human misery. These ruins of my homeland. That hill, over there, that was my village before the Jews came. Now I cannot set foot on the land that belonged to my father and his father before his for thousands of years."

Eitan: "For thousands of years the Jews were forced to wander. We made our homes in many countries, but always oppressed, always resented, and ultimately, almost annihilated by the hatred of one country. My father, David, came here in 1945, when he was 17 years old. His soul hollowed out by Nazi brutality and little blue numbers tattooed on his arm?"

The monologues continue:

Yacoub: "They say they returned to their homeland in 1948. Where were my people before then? Did we fall out of trees? The Jews saw the ghosts of their past and ignored the living. And our Jewish friends, those who lived side by side with us for years, began to see us differently. Their brothers from Europe colonized our land and took village after village, changing their names from Arabic to Hebrew. My grandfather's village, Al-Mazar, was wiped from the face of the Earth by the Golani Brigades in al-Nakba, the disaster."

As the action unfolds, Eitan's sleep deepens, while the spirit of his professor wife who died in childbirth (Karasso) sways and twirls around his bed. In his dream he envisions the Ramallah home of Leila (Ripard) and Samir Waleed (Sanjay Chandani).

A very pregnant Leila complains there is no cheese, no meat, no eggs-only lentils-for dinner because Samir and his brother Nassem (Adrian R'Mante) have no jobs. Suddenly it is time to take her to the hospital. When they reach the military checkpoint, however, they are brutally questioned. Even though in labor, Leila must be searched.

The Israeli guards deny her permission to cross-her passbook had expired the day before. Eitan watches the young woman die.

In his basement hideout, Yacoub interviews an applicant (Bashar Da'as) to carry out a suicide bombing.

Later the brigade leader sleeps, his dreams haunted by the image of his dead sister, who had been a friend of Tavi Barak, an Israeli peace activist. He envisions Tavi (also played by Ripard) going to a coffee house and coming face-to-face with the bomber just as he is to detonate a belt of explosives.

Both men again experience the same nightmare, this time trying to stop the actors from the tragedy that awaits them. They begin to respect and recognize the family ties, humanity and love shared by Palestinian and Jewish family members.

The inevitable, however, cannot be avoided.

Farsakh relies on the metaphysical for a conclusion that promises hope, if only each side can recognize the other's struggle to live in safety and dignity.

"Convergence" offers the closest semblance to a bomb attack that anyone would care to experience. It is also convincing in its look at the deprivation of freedom Palestinians endure under military occupation.

The exquisite dancing of Karasso renders a mystical dimension to the performance. Born in Morocco, she grew up in Israel, later studying dance in Konia, Turkey, India and southern Spain.

Karasso, who served in the Israeli Army, said that, deep down, she always felt Israel was right. "This play was very healing," she told the Washington Report. "At first I was angry, then I was moved to tears. A huge wall of defense went down. I woke up to the truth that the same facts have different points of view."

The three-hour play is in need of severe cuts, and Barnao is working on this before its 2004 reopening. He also is trying to raise funds on a grassroots level, and to obtain grants to form two companies and take "Convergence" to high schools throughout the U.S.

He can be reached at .

Pat McDonnell Twair is a free-lance writer based in Los Angeles.