{"id":50445,"date":"2015-04-25T22:18:32","date_gmt":"2015-04-25T19:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/?p=50445"},"modified":"2015-04-25T22:18:32","modified_gmt":"2015-04-25T19:18:32","slug":"the-siege-completes-west-bank-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/2015\/04\/the-siege-completes-west-bank-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"The Siege completes West Bank tour"},"content":{"rendered":"

Receiving outstanding\u00a0reviews,\u00a0The Siege<\/em>\u00a0by The Freedom Theatre\u00a0has just ended\u00a0a series of sold-out performances across the West Bank. Large audiences from Jenin to Bethlehem were\u00a0captured throughout the\u00a0play;\u00a0laughing, crying\u00a0and cheering\u00a0as the story of the siege of Bethlehem in 2002 unfolded.<\/p>\n

“We chose to portray the siege of the Church of the Nativity because it was such an important event in Palestinian society”, says Nabil Al-Raee, artistic director of The Freedom Theatre and co-creator of\u00a0The Siege. “It is still important for a lot of people, especially for the fighters who were exiled indefinitely, and for their families. We used the story of the siege of Bethlehem to speak about the siege of Palestine that is ongoing since 1948.\u00a0I also have a personal connection to this event as\u00a0some of my friends were in the church.”<\/p>\n

The Siege<\/em>\u00a0opened to a full house at The Freedom Theatre on April 4,\u00a0the fourth anniversary of the unsolved murder of\u00a0the theatre’s general director and co-founder, Juliano Mer Khamis in 2011. April 4\u00a0is also the anniversary of the large-scale invasion of Jenin Refugee Camp by the occupation forces\u00a0in 2002, which played out in parallel to the siege of Bethlehem. The last performance of\u00a0The Siege<\/em>\u00a0took place in Bethlehem, a very symbolic event attended by over 350 people, some of whom\u00a0had personal experiences of\u00a0those fateful 39 days when the entire centre of Bethlehem was under curfew.<\/p>\n

The Siege<\/em>\u00a0brings together Palestinian actors from the West Bank, Palestine ’48\/Israel and Jerusalem, as well as a creative team with Palestinian and\u00a0international\u00a0members, including The Freedom Theatre co-founder, composer and activist\u00a0Dror Feiler and\u00a0composer Nicola Kodjabashia. (Find full list of creative team, cast and production team\u00a0here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The Siege<\/em> will soon embark on The Freedom Theatre’s first UK tour,\u00a0with a string of performances across Britain.<\/p>\n

“I think it is important that The Freedom Theatre comes to Britain because it is about time that British people understand the true narrative of what is going on in Palestine, and our relationship to that”, says Zoe Lafferty, British co-creator of\u00a0The Siege.\u00a0“I believe that The Freedom Theatre is one of the strongest voices to tell those stories.”<\/p>\n

UK tour dates & details<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“This is a rare opportunity to see this famous company. This should be not only exciting theatre but give us an insight into the horrific oppression suffered by Palestinians in the territories occupied by Israel. I\u2019m sure the performance will be a hit!\u201d\u00a0Ken Loach, film director<\/em><\/p>\n

“It is very exciting to welcome The Freedom Theatre\u2019s tour of their new play \u2018The Siege\u2019 to Britain. This is real political theatre, performed out of the both terrible and inspiring experience of a struggle for freedom and justice. They are living proof that telling stories and entertaining audiences are powerful acts of resistance to oppression. Do go and see them, they have news for us. This little theatre could change the world.\u201d Howard Brenton, playwright<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Receiving outstanding\u00a0reviews,\u00a0The Siege\u00a0by The Freedom Theatre\u00a0has just ended\u00a0a series of sold-out performances across the West Bank. Large audiences from Jenin to Bethlehem were\u00a0captured throughout the\u00a0play;\u00a0laughing, crying\u00a0and cheering\u00a0as the story of the siege of Bethlehem in 2002 unfolded. “We chose to portray the siege of the Church of the Nativity because it was such an important […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-theatre-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}