EIF Review: Al-Sirah Al-Hilaliyyah

Khashabi Theatre’s Al-Sirah Al-Hilaliyyah opens with intimate warmth rather than distant spectacle. Creators Bashar Murkus and Khulood Basel set an inviting tone as actors greet audience members like friends arriving for a family gathering. Washed in sun-baked beige, ochre, and warm orange, the stage evokes the quiet glow of a desert campfire.

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Rejecting traditional Western staging, the Haifa-based ensemble trades psychological realism for a collective storytelling perspective and simple everyday attire – plain trousers, casual tops, and white calf-length skirts. Stripping away exoticism reveals a universal human origin: gathering around the fire to make sense of the world through shadow puppetry, live music, and epic verse.

The performance follows the full arc of its hero, Abu Zayd al-Hilali, across two sweeping acts. It begins with the tragedy of his birth: a child with “ebony skin,” cast out by his father and exiled alongside his mother in a stark portrait of pride and inherited shame. As Abu Zayd grows into an elite warrior, the narrative reaches its most devastating emotional peak – a duel in which father and son, separated by years of exile and hidden identities, meet on the battlefield as strangers. The second act shifts to the Hilali migration, where a devastating drought spirals into violent conquest, climate displacement, blood vengeance, and repeated betrayals that drive the hero toward his tragic end. These arcs feel strikingly modern in their themes of prejudice, displacement, and fractured kinship, despite having been created over a thousand years ago. Yet the epic also resonates with medieval Irish sagas: in its grey morality and mythic exaggerations, it reminds us that across continents, communities have long used storytelling to process harsh realities.

Production Execution, Pacing, and Political Resonance

Yet this ambition comes at a cost. At three hours and twenty minutes, the attempt to retain every subplot and oral refrain causes the pace to drag – the script even includes witty moments where actors break to ask whether the audience still remembers who a character is. A tighter focus on the hero’s birth, key trials, and ultimate death would have delivered a sharper emotional impact. Certain sequences, such as the prolonged horse-head dance, felt especially drawn out and emotionally static despite dramatic shifts in the text.

The production’s musical foundation is deeply effective, combining pre-recorded tracks with live percussion that drives a hypnotic tempo and makes the chest resonate physically. Technical execution, however, occasionally falters. In one scene, poor sound mixing pushed the actors’ voices behind the music. The lighting and visuals, though simple, demand immense precision to make the shadow theatre fully cohere. A critical moment near the end suffered when surtitles fell out of sync with the stage action; appearing for only a few seconds, the text left the audience scrambling to catch conclusive lines. Tonal dissonance also surfaced – for instance, Khadra’s divining scene near the pond felt celebratory rather than melancholic, sitting uneasily beside her husband’s emotional longing for a son.

Despite these hurdles, the poetic Arabic flowed mesmerisingly, supported by soaring vocals, dancing scenes with traditional elements such as line dances or oriental dance, refreshingly performed by both men and women as a shared social diversion. Most remarkable was the ensemble’s stamina, remaining fiercely vibrant after more than three continuous hours on stage. As the final shadow faded, the auditorium rose in an instantaneous standing ovation, punctuated by shouts of “Free Palestine.” It remains a vital, atmospheric night of theatre – one that speaks directly to the present moment, where cultural memory and political reality meet onstage.

Featured Image: Al-Sirah-Al-Hilaliyyah-c-Khulood-Basel-4

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