Transit Tripoli
Freely adapted from Anna Seghers‘ novel Transit, Caroline Hatem‘s theatre adaptation shifts the setting from Marseille in the 1940s to Lebanon today, a centre of refugee flows from Syria. The director, who is based in Beirut, works with artists from Lebanon and Syria and has translated Seghers‘ texts into Arabic for the first time with actor Josef Akiki and dramaturg Bassel Shalgheen.
The audience follows the narrator into the streets and cafés of Tripoli, where people wait for visas and opportunities to escape. An immediate present-day scenario opens up, carried by the biting humour of Seghers‘ hero and supported by the video and live music, to evoke the sea and the open city. But beyond tackling actual tragic news material, Transit Tripoli accounts for one‘s inner space and freedom, ballads and gaze, while subjected to the implacability of History.
Transit Tripoli
Theatre performance freely adapted from Anna Seghers‘ novel Transit
Director: Caroline Hatem
Performer: Josef Akiki
Live music: Rabih Gebeile
Video: Walid Abdelnour
Scenography: Velica Panduru
Light designer: Erich Schneider
Drawings: Jean-Marc Nahas
Dramaturg: Bassel Shalgheen
Production: YAZAN, funded by international coproduction fund of the Goethe-Institut, Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics & Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie
Rehearsal residence: Schaubühne Berlin