Romeo and Juliet via Skype
A response to Nawar Bulbul’s reimagining of Romeo and Juliet, performed simultaneously in Homs and Amman, with the star cross’d lovers connecting via Skype. Article By Lab Fellow Reem Alsayyah.
I was in Jordan when I saw this unforgettable play. When we first arrived, it seemed just like a normal building, three, maybe four floors tall. As we started up the stairs, it wasn’t hard to recognize the building was actually a small hospital, filled with chatter from people of all ages, but mostly young people and children with bandages on their heads and splints on their wrists and feet. All war-wounded. Finally, we reached the roof of the building, where the play would take place. We waited, knowing that we were going to be surprised, as nothing so far looked like a normal theater performance.
In the middle of the roof stood a very big screen. Our surroundings were very basic, and we didn’t know why the screen was there. Then the performance started, with a Skype call to Juliet, who was played by a girl inside the besieged city of Homs. Romeo was the cutest actor I had ever seen, a young boy, maybe 13 years old. He used a crutch to walk—the crutch would later became his dagger. At Capulet’s ball, when Romeo left his newfound love’s side, all of his friends were on crutches too. They, like Romeo, looked like knights, swinging their crutch-swords as they left the scene.
Romeo spoke with Juliet via Skype in an amazing Arabic dialogue adapted from Shakespeare by Nawar Bulbul. The speeches in the play were done so perfectly, the performances from each young actor were impressively professional. Unfortunately, the Skype connection cut several times during the play, but Romeo was always waited for his Juliet, and the story wasn’t affected by the interruption. They continued the play despite being kept apart.
Juliet was especially moving. There were also other actors from Homs, including Juliet’s mother and maid, who appeared on the screen — their acting was so beautiful, especially considering that their city had been besieged for such a long time—I saw the play in 2015. Their performances were fresh and clear.
At the end of the play there was a surprise! In a departure from Shakespeare’s story, both Romeo and Juliet refused to end their lives. They wanted to live. They said that they had experienced enough death so far, they wanted to continue their lives, peacefully and without war, bombs, camps, injured limbs, or scars.
It was such an emotional moment that we all stood up and clapped hard. It was magical. This play was extraordinary in every way possible, particularly how it defeated war and siege by using technology. Technology played a very important role in terms of making this performance possible. The messages the play gave us were so strong, from rejecting death and war to being proud of your scars and continuing on in life with what you have. I’ll never forget Romeo and his friends who used their crutches as swords.
This play taught me a lot, and it’s a play I won’t forget at all — so original and very much alive.
Reem Alsayyah was born in Damascus, Syria as the third of eight children. She studied networking engineering at the University, and in 2012, with only three exams left until graduation, Reem was forced to flee Damascus and was unable to complete her degree. The War in Syria forced Reem and her family to cross the border into Jordan and to take on a new name: “refugee”. In Amman, she worked as a secretary and an interpreter. She also volunteered at UNICEF and on many projects supporting refugees (primarily children and women). Her first experience in theater was when she participated the workshop and performance of Syria: The Trojan Women. Although the cast was denied visas to perform at Georgetown University and Columbia University in 2014, she still participated and shared her story via Skype from Amman. The cast has performed the play in Switzerland and the UK (under its new name The Queens of Syria) in a critically-celebrated tour that included stops at the Young Vic and Edinburgh, and she has had the opportunity to share how the war impacted her life with thousands of audience members. She served as the lead coordinator for an Arabic version of Oliver by Lionel Bart, performed by children refugees from Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Palestine. Currently, Reem is studying BIT online at Amity University in the United Kingdom after receiving a scholarship from the European Union and British Council, and hopes to continue to work with refugee children in theater.
