Royal Court Theatre, London – until 8 March 2025
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
5*****
The power and devastating impact of Khawla Ibraheem’s writing and performance is demonstrated in the silence and collective intake of breath in the theatre as the show ends.
Ibraheem plays Mariam, a Palestinian woman living with her son in Gaza. Her husband is studying abroad, and Mariam refuses to move back to her family home, so her mother moves into Mariam’s seventh floor flat. (Mariam explains that whole families are living together in tiny flats as they wish to live and die together.) The play predates the current occupation and Mariam’s mother’s comments about surviving the war before this one, and the war before that, remind us of the seemingly endless conflict and uncertainty that the people of Gaza have seen.
The play begins as a playful monologue, describing the playfulness of Mariam’s son Nour and the necessary routines that build around power outages. Ibraheem is engaging and forceful – creating a character with an unexpected backstory that creates a sense of endearment and explains the simmering resentment that she occasionally reveals.
The knock on the roof is the name given to the small incendiary devices dropped by the IDF, alerting the occupants of a building that another, more powerful, bomb will be dropped in 5 minutes. Mariam tests how far she can run from her building in 5 minutes and is shocked to find out that it will not be far enough to be safe. So begins an increasingly obsessive practice routine. Mariam prepares a go bag, but will it be too heavy? Realising that she will probably have to carry her son, she stuffs a pillowcase as a dummy weight to carry on her nightly practice runs. As the impending danger creeps ever closer to her home, Mariam’s priorities change – why can’t she take things she actually wants like her expensive face cream? Meanwhile, her husband’s regular phone calls become an irritant as she needs to focus completely on her escape plan.
Ibraheem’s physicality is astounding as she acts out the nightly run, with Mariam’s obsession and desperation palpable. Oliver Butler’s astute direction ensures that the audience is rapt as Mariam’s story unfolds. In the beginning, Ibraheem asks the audience’s opinions, which reminds us that this is theatre, but also invests us in her plight. Frank J Oliva’s stark walls are the perfect backdrop for Hana S Kim’s eerie projections, and Rami Nakhleh’s music and sound design alongside Oona Curley’s wonderful lighting create a hauntingly urgent and dangerous atmosphere.
While the headlines can sometimes wash over us as a never-ending numbing wave of horrors, Khawla Ibraheem’s play reminds us of the human cost of the conflict – the strength and ingenuity of humanity and the psychological trauma of being trapped and living under the constant threat of death. A shockingly potent and moving play that needs to be seen.