Daniel Nelson
Palestine can be funny as well as tragic, as actor-comedian-writer Alaa Shehada showed by helping “open the door of stand-up comedy in Palestine” and commanding a stage with his one-man show The Horse of Jenin.
Now he’s again taking us to the other, personal side of Palestinian lives with a second one-man performance, The Bridge at the Bush Theatre.
A natural show-off, he clearly loves performing, clowning and conjuring up a variety of characters, almost to the point of self-congratulation. But he always undercuts himself at the last moment, with a self-deprecating joke, an illuminating observation, an eye for human foibles and, most of all, by his commitment to the Palestinian cause and a century of injustice.
His story is simple: it’s a description of the indignities, hardships, frustrations and of course humour of a 12-hour, 180-metre journey to deliver a bright yellow container of olive from his mother in Jenin to her sister in Amman who she hasn’t seen for 19 years.
The bridge is the only designated exit and entry point for West Bank Palestinians travelling abroad by land. Brits call it the Allenby Bridge and the translation of the Jordanian name is King Hussein Bridge. Oh yes, mustn’t forget the Palestinians themselves: they know it as the Al-Karameh Bridge or simply Al-Jisr: The Bridge, though it’s no longer really a bridge because the river under it has been reduced to a trickle by Israeli water extraction.
Shehada is his mother, the uncle in Jordan, the taxi driver, an elderly female fellow traveller. From time to time he engages audience members, and delightful illustrations pop up on the wall behind him, as well as arrogant, racist quotes by British politicians from before and during the time of Israel’s creation as a nation (“a few White men drawing lines on a map”).
At times it’s rather shouty — has to bem because Shehada is on a large open stage, with the audience on three sides — and there aren’t many out-and-out zingers. But he gives us two hours of humane humour, a handful of lovely characters, a feeling of Palestinian warmth, a pleasing interplay with the audience, a glow of people’s humanity, perseverance and resistance, and gently but very firmly a sense of unceasing anger at the privations enforced on Palestinians (at the border with Israel “I have to eat all my anger and be a Good Palestinian".}
It’s engaging political theatre with a small p, but immensely powerful, fun and moving.
The Bridge, £15 to £35, concessions available, Bush Theatre, 7 Uxbridge Road W12 8LJ until 11 November. Info: Bush