A Knock on the Roof comes to The Royal Court via New York Theatre Workshop to help break down the othering of victims in modern conflict.
A few months ago, I visited an opera house to see an established piece of repertoire. As the audience became a post-show bottleneck shuffling towards exits, I overheard comments from a member of the audience to his younger companion. He was incredulous about the conflict in Gaza, separating the word ‘Is-ra-el’ into consonants with mocking intonation and saying glibly, perhaps provokingly, "I’m not all that interested in it. I don’t know what the fuss is about."
As an ex-colonial power, pockets of British society have a long history of diminishing the suffering of those in ‘less developed’ territories—a distancing from horror that can only be achieved by making the victims ‘different’ or other than themselves. Palestinian Khawla Ibraheem’s monologue of motherly obsession and protection in besieged Gaza is part of the canon of theatre that serves to combat this othering, and, by connecting with the audience very directly, she achieves this with beautiful craftsmanship.
Even with such meaty subject matter, this is no mean feat, as holding an audience in constant thrall during a monologue is almost an impossible task, especially with minimal visual effects. However, Ibraheem achieves this in a few bold ways.
Firstly, she has a naturally musical voice, with warm timbre and the singing quality of an alto. This projects well to the back wall of the Royal Court and into the boxes. While at first the simple gestures and pacing of the stage feel unaffecting, her combination of clarity of gesture and quality of voice quickly becomes compelling.
The compulsion to keep watching is also smoothed along by a highly visual text that keeps the audience in the momentum of the protagonist, Maryam’s routine. Every night, she imagines the "knock on the roof" that signals an imminent bomb attack, training herself to gather her son and essential belongings and run from the house to the pace of two alarms set on her phone. This routine becomes just that: a theatrical routine with the scope for tender comic moments, flashes of humane insight and, at times, suspense as she encounters the scenes of others whose homes and lives have been damaged.
Memorable descriptions include her mother's urging Maryam to wear a nightshirt in the shower in the event that she loses her life while naked. Details of the personal effects Maryam packs into bags and the pillowcase representing her sleeping son are also used well to conjure the relatability of day to day life as a mother protecting her sons. The metatheatre of throwing questions out to the audience in search of real responses supports this with humour and a slice of the unexpected. "What would you take?" she says—the audience variously suggest passport, photos… a cat. And she challenges too, with, "does this look normal to you?"
The dissociation from one's body that arises from trauma is cleverly illustrated by designer Oona Curley in the way Maryam’s larger-than-life shadow splits into two while she describes her conflicted state of mind. The show’s final, ‘real’, knock on the roof leads to an endnote that is genuinely unexpected and puzzling, leaving you questioning what is done for self and others in times of high crises, how this can be confused and the likelihood that when the ‘knock’ eventually comes, no training will prepare you for it.
Bridging the gap between the ‘other’ world of the Middle East and the West, Khawhla Ibraheem and director Oliver Butler have successfully brought the domestic lives of those trapped in modern conflict closer to home.