Sitt Marie Rose
with: Anja Schweitzer, Henry Meyer, Patrick Khatami, Markus Schöttl, Mirco Monshausen, director: Anna Malunat, costumes: Mona Ulrich, music: Simon Camatta, dramaturg: Hannah Schwegler, FFT Düsseldorf & Theater Oberhausen, 2009
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Beirut 1975: The Lebanese Christian Sitt Marie-Rose supports Palestinian refugees. The Christian militia arrests her and intends to execute her for treason. By chance her childhood love, Mounir is facing her in the interrogation. Based on a true story the Lebanese author Etel Adnan tells a story about a woman whose passion for justice allows intimate insight into the backstage of the Lebanese civil war, a war between the Lebanese and the Palestinians, between the rich and the poor, Christians and Muslims, men and women. Adnan is one of the best known Arabic-American authors. Her 1977 novel Sitt Marie-Rose was awarded the Prix de l’Amitié franco-arabe and is without doubt a classic pieces of middle-eastern literature.
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The performance space seeks to express the fragility of the political context in the middle-east. A surface is formed from 240mm x 240mm white plaster tiles. The underside of the tiles is hollow. Step by step the weight of the actors fractures the tiles. In front of the audience’s eyes the pristine white surface is reduced into a landscape of dust and rubble.