Tag Archives | yehia jaber

Review – Beirut Fawq Al Shajara بيروت فوق الشجرة

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I recently watched “Beirut Fawq Al Shajara” written by Yehya Jaber and starring Ziad Itani, the same duo who brought us “Beirut Tarik Jdideh” a couple of years ago. And while the latter featured stories inspired from the day to day lives of people living in Tarik Jdideh, the new play focused on events that took place around other areas in Beirut. It might sound redundant at first, but trust me it isn’t. Ziad Itani delivered once again a solid performance without feeling fake on stage, and never failed to crack the audience up at the stories he was illustrating.

Beirut Fawk al Shajara follows the story of Fouad, a Beiruti influenced by his Turkish grandmother as a child, who manages to engage into relationships with many women of different nationalities as he ages while working as tailor. With each relationship we get introduced to some event that took place at a certain time in Beirut’s recent history in a humorous way.

What makes it all interesting is that despite the whole story being fictitious, the events Ziad Itani tells are all pretty accurate. So you’ll be laughing your heart our over the play duration but still learn a good deal from the recent history of the city. You are also guaranteed to be leaving the theater and for some reason humming “Oh lali 3ala Oh lala”!

All in all, and as a side note, I’m really satisfied about the plays Lebanese artists have performed over the last few years such as Venus, Ka3eb 3aleh, and Injazat 7ayat to name a few that do not speak to the audience in a dumb way the same way Lebanese movies and drama series mostly do.

Beirut Fawq Al Shajara is showing at Teatro Verdun (Dunes Center) on Mondays and Thursdays, with tickets selling for 35,000L.L. Needless to say, I highly recommend you go watch it!

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Review – Beirut… Tarik el Jdideh

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Last weekend I watched the comedy play “Beirut… Tarik el Jdideh” by Lebanese poet Yehia Jaber, and it’s by far one of the funniest plays I’ve watched.

Unlike other comedy plays, Tarik el Jdideh doesn’t make fun or disrespect the inhabitants of that area but rather uses black comedy to tell their stories since the beginning of the 20th century till today, while shedding light on the sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia.

Throughout two hours, actor Ziad Itani (who performs alone by the way) gets you to know the people of Tarik el Jdideh by portraying their weddings, celebrations, funerals, and eid rituals, in addition to telling about real events that took place such as some incidents that happened during the Lebanese civil war and when the Syrians came later on. A significant part of the play also describes the clashes that used to happen between Al Ansar fans and those of Al Nejmeh and how it all started.

Tarik el Jdideh is highly recommended not just for being super entertaining, but also for the strong message it delivers at the end.

It’s currently showing at Metro Al Madina and will last till the end of March as their events schedule show. Tickets are for 25,000L.L and you may reserve by calling 76-309363.

Below are some short parts of the play as well as interviews with its writer Yehia Jaber and actor Ziad Itani by Now Lebanon.

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