Why buy a ticket to nowhere? Khalid Abdalla briefly ponders that question at the start of his powerful, often moving performance.
Admitting there are now places in the world “where nowhere is safe,” he asks, “when the unbearable becomes consistent, where do you go?”
His answer is a story of revolutionary movements, friendships and family that opens and closes with reference to Palestine but takes us on a journey across continents, colonial history and his fight for democracy.
The spark for the Arab Spring that would sweep away dictators came in Tunisia with the police taking away the scales of the street vendor Mohamed, who, in frustration at the refusal of the authorities to do anything about it, set himself on fire. The protests that followed had Tunisia’s dictator fleeing the country.
They also inspired protests across the Middle East. Khalid Abdalla joined the ones in Egypt’s Tahrir Square, initially helping others who were resisting brutal police attacks, but eventually chucking stones alongside others. It would send the Egyptian dictator packing.
Onto the back screen are projected pictures of him as a child with his father, and he recalls both his father and grandfather being imprisoned for political reasons. In these scenes and others, he will sometimes physically contort his body, shaking his right hand grotesquely as if reflecting the suffering such oppression causes.
He says, “part of my experience of revolutionary moments is that they force us out of ourselves.”
His personal story takes us to Glasgow, America and England and includes his life as an actor performing in the film United 503. Crossing borders includes such ridiculous moments as an interview by the authorities at an airport, who asked him why he was friends with the people he named as friends.
One friend who became very special is the Egyptian political activist and artist Aalam who helped to give voice to the Arab Spring. On the screen are projected the drawings he made of his face, and, in an act of community, the audience collected an envelope from beneath their seats that contained a mirror, pencil and a square of white card upon which we quickly drew our own faces.
But the final moments of the show return to his horror at the terrible suffering of Israelis on October 7 and the subsequent killing by Israelis in Gaza of “sixteen and a half thousand children.”
As he speaks with us, he constructs a dove, the symbol of peace and freedom. Placing it gently on the floor in the darkening room, a spotlight lingers around it, a moment of hope in terrible times.
The inspiring and eloquent performance of Khalid Abdalla leaves us not only with a stark vision of what is wrong with the world but importantly also why it can be changed for the better.