Gaza: gauze, wine, spices. Why not Olympic host?
Daniel Nelson
A play about the Gaza genocide could be dramatic and harrowing or, as several productions have shown recently, it could humorous or fantastical. Palestinian-British writer Ahmed Masoud combines both in Application 39.
Part of the 90-minute production is about the escape from a bombed building by a young brother and sister. It’s a vivid account of being trapped under rubble and, by luck and intelligence, finding a way out to “safety’. For Masoud, this is personal, because 13 of his relatives, including his brother, have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory onslaught.
The reality and impact of the script is heightened by mention of the former director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, Dr Hussam Abu Safia — still in prison and denied Red Cross visits.
In the play the siblings go on to submit in 2046 a jokey proposal to host the 2048 Olympics.
In this imagined future Israel, with the help of killer robots, controls an area containing a number of small Palestinian states, of which Gaza is one, They are like the Bantustans set up by South Africa’s apartheid regimes in a bid to convince the world that Africans had freedom in their “homelands”.(An independent Scotland is also alluded to, as well as King Trump presiding over a slice of what was the US.)
To everyone’s astonishment, the Olympic committee accepts the proposal.
Masoud has recalled how people laughed when he told them about his idea of a Gaza Olympics: “I did, too, because this is the whole point of the play, to challenge people’s perspective on what my home could offer.
“But then throughout the writing process, I kept asking myself, why shouldn’t Gaza, an historic coastal city with thousands of years of vibrant culture that has given the world gauze, finest wine, spices and much more, be a place where the Olympics could be held.”
The Gaza Bantustan is too small to be an Olympic host. A marathon, for example, would involve running round the border several times. But the siblings have an answer: many events will take place in tunnels.
Masoud’s play certainly deserves a medal for imaginative thinking, as well as for helping keep the focus on Palestinians and Gaza.
* Application 39, £10 - £30, Theatre Royal, Stratford East, Gerry Raffles Square, E15 1BN until 14 October. Info: Theatre Royal