Review of Revolution Days – a fearless worker bears witness to the Arab spring | Theater

Men irregular times, to remember The well of the Arabs it will be fresh in our minds. But with the Iran war that has already begun to focus on Gaza (not to mention Ukraine), you can forget the magnitude of the change in the tide in North Africa and the Middle East 15 years ago.

This is where social media stepped in, building solidarity as people took to the streets to protest democracy: in Tunisia where fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire; in Libya where people attacked Col Gaddafi; and in Egypt where protests across the country, especially in Tahrir Square in Cairo, led to the removal of President Mubarak. At the time, it felt like things were changing for the better.

Mariem Omari was there to see this, first as a UN humanitarian agency manager, then as a human rights report writer. Doctors of the World. An Arabic speaker from a Lebanese-Scottish family, he arrived in Jordan to visit Israel and Iraq a few months before receiving reports of unrest in Tunisia.

His play, Revolution Days, is based on the events. Samira, a young aid worker, filled with gung-ho spirit, goes from seeing the consequences of the violence in the West Bank and the consequences of American phosphorous oil in Iraq to meet directly with terrorists and refugees displaced by government forces.

Played by the brilliant Olivia Hemmati in Shilpa T-Hyland’s production of Citizens and Omari’s Bijli company, Samira is at once a passive observer, a revolutionary hero and a young woman in emotional danger. He thinks he can count the evidence of rape, injury and starvation with impunity, but the hair growing out of his head tells a different story. His anger at the dysfunctionality of the world only adds to the damage to his mental health. This fearless man finds himself with a second dreaded anxiety.

In this way, the play is less about the politics of the revolutionary days, depicted in the scenes shown behind Hemmati, and more about the social impact of the riots. If the abuse is common, the feeling of helpless anger in the bystander is real.