Hamlet's Ghosts on West Bank

I was keen to read Isabella Hammad's 'Enter Ghost' (2023). Historical conflict, current day tensions, actors, the theatre, self-reflection, hunger strikes, teenage memories of Palestine. It was such good and incisive writing. (Reviews here, here, here and here.) 

London-based British-Palestinian actor Sonia Nasir returns to visit her homeland for the first time in years. Sonia has a tense and prickly relationship with her older sister Haneen. As teenagers, after witnessing a hunger strike, Haneen dedicated herself to political causes, becoming a Professor at an Israeli university in Tel Aviv, being one of the only two Arabs on the faulty, holding an Israeli passport. Sonia left town and made a life in England, vowing never to return, holding only a British passport. 

I did not understand this. As far as I could see, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza were well on their way to losing everything. But I didn't feel like getting into a political argument with my sister, who had an easy grasp of statistics and was an actual professor.

Sonia joins her friend's sister — theatre producer Mariam Mansour's adaptation of 'Hamlet' as Gertrude in a production on West Bank, in Haifa. The production is staged in classical Arabic. Both Mariam and Sonia's families remained in Haifa after Palestinian-Arabs were driven out of the region in 1948. They had privileges afforded by their Israeli passports. Considering her family's background and links to Palestine and Israel, Sonia's political awakening came late. She only joined in her first demonstration on this trip home as an adult in her late 30s. 

Single mother Mariam leads a seemingly bohemian lifestyle with her son Emil, living as a Palestinian in Israeli territory with Israeli licence plates on her car. However, readers soon learn that under that cheerful facade, is a steely resolve, focused and all business-like. She's politically connected; her politics and her parenting don't differ much. But that political dedication has an emotional cost, as it is for all who are dedicated to a cause. Art is a powerful tool to draw out everyone's hidden intentions. 

Does a West Bank production of Hamlet even parallel what's happening in Bethlehem? The magnitude is so different. A young King seeking justice for his father and a rotten kingdom. American writing and media tend to avoid any Palestinian issue. 

In this story, against the backdrop of mass protests and making art, sorting out funding, checkpoint and inspection challenges, and the bigger question of whether the Israelis will even let Palestinian theater company stage performances, it's inevitable that the ending is such. But as Mariam says to Sonia, 

“If we let disaster stand in our way we will never do anything. Every day here is a disaster.”

The cast found out that the stage manager Dawud is also Yunes, someone Haneen has known for a while. But nobody knows his real name — he's an informant or member of the Shin Bet. Opening night saw the Israeli military close off their original venue. They had to move to a village west of Ramallah, under joint Palestinian and Israeli control. Theatre productions in Palestine are apparently so used to this sort of hiccups that it isn't a major obstacle. Wow. Opening night went on, successfully. The play was staged, with members of the Shin Bet watching in the audience.

During the second staging of the play, they chose a different venue. This was a political choice and rather... pointed. They chose to build the stage next to a checkpoint on the Palestinian side of the wall. The Israeli military wasn't amused by the army uniforms and fake rifles of the cast. By Act 1 Sc 5 when the ghost enters, that was when shots ran out. The Israeli soldiers started shooting into the audience. 

The land was in Area B, under joint Palestinian and Israeli control, and the village was renowned for weekly Friday protests against a nearby settlement, and against the soldiers who protected the settlers, who often terrorised the villages, particularly around the olive harvest. I took this to mean that the location ticked one of Mariam's mental boxes, sending a message along the lines of We are on this land, which wouldn't have felt so much the case had she opted for somewhere in Area A, like a theatre in Ramallah or at one of the universities, although that certainly would have been easier and less risky.