Love story of war-torn Syria ‘served’ well on stage

Chennai: War can rip apart cities, tear down homes, and divide people, but what it can’t do is erase memories. The sound of laughter and the evenings with family and friends, are what live on — it is these stories which Corinne Jaber, a French actor of Syrian-German descent, decided to collect when she first heard of the Syrian civil war.
What began as interviews of refugees in Paris, Lebanon and Jordan turned into Jaber’s play Oh My Sweet Land.She invites audiences into her on-stage kitchen and cooks a Levantine dish — kubah — while narrating a love story against the backdrop of displacement of 2 millionpeople.
“There is nothing left in Syria anymore. When I conceived the idea of the play in 2013 I did not know how long the play would run because I thought the war would end soon. It has been six years since the war started and I am still staging it,” said Jaber, who will stage Oh My Sweet Land at Goethe Institut on April 11 and 12.
Love, loss and longing form the soul of the play, conceived and performed by Jaber. “These were people from diverse backgrounds. Some were rebels, others ordinary people caught in the conflict. But one thread binds them all — the insistence that their stories of survival be shared with the world. They are heroes in their own right as they fight to protect their families,” said Jaber, who holds theatre classes for refugee children in Lebanon.
Written and directed by Amir Nizar Zuabi, a Palestinian, the production of the play was an adventure in itself as Jaber and Zuabi coordinated through Skype. She conducted the interviews, and he researched the other aspects. When they first met at a Jordan cafe there were thousands of stories. Sifting through the narratives, they zeroed in on imagery of food for the play as it lends an air of intimacy. “Food forms an integral part of Syrian culture. My father was Syrian and he cooked wonderful dishes at home. In a way, that is one of the ways I could connect to my homeland,” says Jaber. “Syrians who have watched the play were extremely touched. Also, cooking is an intimate experience and plays on the senses of sight, sound and smell,” she said, adding that the meat is also a metaphor for killing.
Goethe Institut is collaborating with Jaber for a play ‘In memory of’, on the lives of refugees after 70 years of India’s Partition. The actor will be conducting a 10-day workshop in the city.