Up There

The jury's
conclusion

«Between the classic, well-made Ibsenial play, and the solid structure of the Syrian prisons, it seems that the chapters of the tale of the modern-day women’s struggle have not finished yet. As it also seems that the method of writing this struggle should acquire a new form that unites the strength of dramatic writing (Ibsen as a model) and the testimonies power of women who stood against tyranny at their young age and live a doubled exile in Europe today. The project is based on a post-dramatic theatre that mixes between elements, period, and characters of the dramatic theater of Ibsen and the pure political factual document of the testimonies of two women formerly detained in Syria and refugees nowadays in France. All these lines converge in the figure of the artist present on the stage. A refugee artist in Europe, that in the times of the pandemic is holding to his right in pursuing his artistic practice which is already extracted from its context. The artist dramatizes the artistic process, reveals it from within, poses its questions in a loud voice, invites the audience, as he calls upon himself, to explore the possibilities of art anew as a collective cordon for salvation.» In 1991, a group of female communist prisoners in the Duma Women's in Damascus Syria, present the character of Hilde Wangel along with other characters of The Lady from the Sea for the fellow prisoners. They do this despite the prison’s administration that tries to prevent them, and they perform the play to an audience of female felons. 30 years later the Syrian director and playwright Wael Kadour who lives as a refugee in France decides to a initiate a performance that simulates the story of Hilde Wangel between the two plays of Ibsen; The Lady from the sea and The Master Builder and the event of the Ibsen production in the Duma prison. The Ibsen Scope Jury are very intrigued by what we see as an surprising and fascinating juxtaposition of how different artistic methods of different times seek to challenge questions of power, patriarchy and choice. Wael Kadour has presented both an impressive conceptual approach also containing a new dramatic text that the jury finds very promising. It is a hard fact that many important artist lives in diaspora as a result of war. The jury is very grateful for the perspectives and both political and poetic intelligence of this project.

About the project

Would Henrik Ibsen have imagined that one of his plays on women’s right of choice will be represented 100 years later in one of the political women prisons in a country ruled by a dictator regime in a defying and a challenging act against the prison’s authority that tried to stop the show?
Between the classic, well-made Ibsenial play, and the solid structure of the Syrian prisons, it seems that the chapters of the tale of the modern-day women’s struggle have not finished yet. As it also seems that the method of writing this struggle should acquire a new form that unites the strength of dramatic writing (Ibsen as a model) and the testimonies power of women who stood against tyranny at their young age and live a doubled exile in Europe Today.
The project is based on a post-dramatic theatre that mixes between elements, periods, and characters of the dramatic theater of Ibsen and the pure political factual document of the testimonies of two women formerly detained in Syria and refugees nowadays in France. All these lines converge in the figure of the artist present on the stage. A refugee artist in Europe, that in the times of the pandemic is holding to his right in pursuing his artistic practice which is already extracted from its context.

Wael Kadour. Playwright & Director.
Born in 1981, Wael Kadour is a playwright and a theatre director. He currently lives in Paris. After graduating from the Damascus Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in 2006, he obtained a writing residency in the London Royal Court Theatre in 2007. Since 2008, he works as an artistic collaborator in various theatre projects in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, France, Sweden, Italy, and Germany. To date, he has published five plays. He staged his latest play ‘Chronicles of a city we never knew’ in France in January 2019 in collaboration with Mohamad Al Rashi and produced by the French National Theatre (La Filature and Tandem), AFAC and Napoli Teatro Festival.

Mohamad Al Rashi. Director & Actor.
Mohamad Al Rashi was born in Syria in 1970. Actor, director and musician. He graduated from the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts of Damascus in 1995. He began his professional life as an actor at the National Theater in Damascus. He co-founded Damascus Theater Lab with Oussama Ghanam in 2009. He participated at While I was waiting text by Mohammad Al Attar, staged by Omar Abussada. The show had a big European tour started in Avignon Festival in 2016 then, in Brussels, Lausanne, Naples, Zurich, Paris, Geneva, and an international tour took place in Japan, USA, and Australia.
Mohammad is a regular collaborator with Collective Ma’louba in Theatre An der Ruhr. This collaboration started in 2017 at Your love is Fire, then Days in The Sun in 2018, and Danton Returns in 2021, all written by Mudar Alhagge.
Since the end of 2014 he resides in Marseille, France.