\u201cThey made me laugh, they made me cry! I have never seen the prisoner’s issue addressed through art in such a wonderful, sensitive, emotional and strong way.\u201d
\n<\/i>– Majd Beltaji, audience member<\/b><\/p>\n
The Freedom Theatre\u2019s latest production The Island<\/i> opened to a packed house on Thursday, March 7 in Jenin Refugee Camp.<\/p>\n
The Deputy Minister of Prisons from the Jenin PA came to see the play and brought a group of former political prisoners and their families to the opening. One of the former prisoners had been in prison for 27 years.<\/p>\n
The Island<\/i> is a South African apartheid-era drama that takes place in a prison and revolves around two cellmates: Mukhtar and Imam, who spend their days at mind-numbing physical labour and at night rehearse for a performance of Sophocles’\u00a0Antigon<\/i>e.<\/p>\n
The Freedom Theatre\u2019s adaptation of\u00a0The Island<\/i>\u00a0reflects the experiences of Palestinian political prisoners and the abuses within the Israeli prison system. The play also highlights the parallels between apartheid South Africa and Palestine today.<\/p>\n
The Island<\/i> is directed by\u00a0The Freedom Theatre’s Artistic Director Gary M. English who is also a Professor of Drama at the University of Connecticut in the United States: “The Island\u00a0<\/i>is political drama at its best with political ideas embedded within the characters and their experience. It is universal in its themes – including the tragedy of those who anyway in the world are unjustly imprisoned for purely political reasons, beliefs or for simply speaking out against injustice.”<\/p>\n
During the climatic scene when Muhktar says, “How do I count my days, 1, another day comes, 1, another day comes…\u201d the audience and particularly the former prisoners broke into applause.<\/p>\n
Theatre that matters is alive and well in Jenin. The free performances of The Island<\/i>\u00a0continue through Wednesday, March 13. The play will tour Sweden, Norway, Brazil and the US later this year.<\/p>\n
The Freedom Theatre dedicates this play to Samer Issawi and all other Palestinian political prisoners.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/a>\u00a0about The Island<\/p>\n For interviews contact:<\/p>\n Gary M English, Director: gary@thefreedomtheatre.org<\/a>, +970(0)595020132<\/a> \u201cThey made me laugh, they made me cry! I have never seen the prisoner’s issue addressed through art in such a wonderful, sensitive, emotional and strong way.\u201d – Majd Beltaji, audience member The Freedom Theatre\u2019s latest production The Island opened to a packed house on Thursday, March 7 in Jenin Refugee Camp. The Deputy Minister […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7699","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=7699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7699\/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=7699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFaisal Abu Alheja, Actor: faisal@thefreedomtheatre.org<\/a>, +970(0)599649008<\/a>
\nAhmad Rokh, Actor: a.alrokh@gmail.com<\/a>, +970(0)592959822<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"