Marriage celebrations are taking place offstage as three young women meet on a Tunisian hotel terrace. They don’t yet know each other but chat since sleep might be difficult given the wedding excitement below.
Journalist Eva (Gamze Sanli) has just been fired by her Turkish newspaper due to a hostile campaign against her writing. That hostility also makes her feel unsafe about returning home. The academic Maryam (Livia Arditti) is Egyptian and restless with a secret she wants to avoid. We will find out later what that secret is.
Amira (Antonia Salib) a Tunisian has just returned from New York and has reasons dating back to the recent revolution why she feels it’s better to stay in a hotel than go home. She tells the others she would like to stay in bed and watch a romcom. When conversations shift to the revolution that was part of the Arab Spring, she asks, “what’s a revolution if you can’t dance.”
Noticing an older woman on a nearby terrace, they soon become four. She is the reasonably well-off Madame Lilla (Nicole Ansari-Cox), who tells them about a whip she keeps in memory of a man who treated her badly. Having her own reasons for travel, she suggests the four of them take a road trip to Syria.
None of the others are keen on the idea, and Maryam shocks everybody by accusing Lilla of having some predatory motive. However, later, Amira returns from the wedding party saying she is responsible for the bride’s death in public and must quickly leave the country. That prompts everyone to agree to leave. Maryam gets her hair cut very short and Amira disguises herself in a long blonde wig.
It’s an improbable start to the four strangers taking an impulsive road trip by car and camel across several countries, one of which seems to be at war, though we never get to know quite why they are at war.
The characters are thinly sketched with very vague motivations and implied secrets which don’t stop them from trusting each other. Conversations include reference to the warning from the Koran to beware the women who blow on knots and to the Greek mythological figure of Dido, though it is not entirely clear how they relate to the story.
The final section of the story reveals the purpose of Lilla’s journey, and then a swift return to Tunisia where everyone has a happy outcome, mysteriously resolving the mysterious issues that had carried them away in the first place.
The show is confidently performed by a fine cast of seven that includes the ensemble actors Öncel Camcı, Mercedes Assad and Sara Diab. Unfortunately, the play lacks clear character development, any dramatic tension or a believable set of events.
Note: this review was written after seeing a preview performance as a result of a late change of cast postponing the opening night by a week.