Mute (Kuwait-Lebanon-Syria) • Vabaduse festival

The seismic event of the Beirut port explosion in August 2020 forms the backdrop to MUTE, a poetic-political text in which Al Bassam tests possible forms of resistance in the face of escalating violence and unprecedented media disinformation. 

MUTE is also a personal metaphor for the thinker and artist who chooses absolute silence, the total negation of speech, as his sovereign form of expression. Faced with the dissolution of the political concepts of left and right, and the geopolitical changes taking place in the Arab world, Al-Bassam poses the following question: how do we define artistic resistance today? What would happen were we to abandon traditional forms of narrative critique and posit silence as a tool of resistance?

 

SABAB Theatre is an independent touring theatre company led by writer/director Sulayman Al-Bassam. The company has achieved worldwide acclaim for its productions, regularly performing to audiences across five continents.

 

Author and Director: Sulayman Al Bassam

Scenographer and Lighting Designer: Eric Soyer

Music Composition: Two or The Dragon

Arabic Translation: Hala Omran

Stage writing: The artistic team

Sound Engineer: Sofiane Ayari

Company Manager and Subtitler: Wafa’a Al Fraheen

Stage Manager: Chaminda Kiralage

Admin Manager: Saif Al Areef

Production Manager: Oussama Jamei

Production Assistant: Mohammad Jawad

Cast: Hala Omran, Abed Kobeissy, Ali Hout