MUTE
(2023-2025)
The seismic event of the Beirut port explosion in August 2020 forms the backdrop to MUTE, a poetic-political text in which Al Bassam tests possible forms of resistance in the face of escalating violence and unprecedented media disinformation.
MUTE is also a personal metaphor for the thinker and artist who chooses absolute silence, the total negation of speech, as his sovereign form of expression. Faced with the dissolution of the political concepts of left and right, and the geopolitical changes taking place in the Arab world, Al-Bassam poses the following question: how do we define artistic resistance today? What would happen were we to abandon traditional forms of narrative critique and posit silence as a tool of resistance?
World Premiere, December 2023, Journées Théâtrales de Cartage.
Running time, 60 minutes
Performed in English and Arabic with live surtitles
Text & Direction: Sulayman Al Bassam
Scenography & Lighting: Eric Soyer
Performers: Hala Omran, Abed Kobeissi, Ali Hout
Music Compositon: Two, or the Dragon
Arabic Translation: Hala Omran
Company Manager & Surtitles: Wafa Al Fraheen
Admin Manager: Saif Al Areef
Assistant Lighting Designer: Saad Samir
Production Manager: Oussama Jamei
Stage Manager: Chaminda Kiralage.
Awards for MUTE @ Les Journées Théâtrales de Cartage, 2023
“Golden Tanit Award (Best Production)”
“Best Actress Award” to Hala Omran
“Best Text Award” to Sulayman Al Bassam
@ The Cairo International Festival of Experimental Theatre, 2024
“Best Actress Award” to Hala Omran
“Best Text Award” to Sulayman Al Bassam
“MUTE goes beyond all critical discourse we have available to us. It is the return of theatre to it’s Dionysic essence.”
-Hatem Al-Talili Mahmoudi, "MUTE: An explosion in Aristotle’s Port”
“Exceptional and unique. Al Bassam’s MUTE, is a direct hit at the hypocrisy and sense of powerlessness we are living.”
“Hala Omran’s lead performance is one of radiating light and all consuming fire. In this extraordinary political work, the audience is left entirely free to think and feel.”
