33 rpm and a few seconds
Lina Saneh / Rabih Mroué
Co-presented by Asia Society, PEN World Voices Festival and Performance Space 122.
A turntable sits on a stack of amplifiers, an ensemble that evokes the pre-CD hi-fi era. A telephone is on the floor. A bulky television. Books are scattered about. A laptop and printer, a mobile phone in its charger. Behind looms the wide screen.
Known for their experimental and controversial works, acclaimed Lebanese theater artists Rabih Mroué and Lina Saneh reconstruct the final moments of a person’s life. A young Lebanese man takes his own life, and in a farewell letter, declares that his reasons are personal and have nothing to do with politics. The young man is dead but everything lives on, vibrating with transmissions in his bedroom: the television, the answering machine, the computer. Time pauses and begins anew; history is pieced together—never constructed, of course—from so many fragments of communication.
60 minutes
April 29, 8pm
April 30, 7pm & 9pm
at the Asia Society
725 Park Ave in Manhattan
Text and direction: Rabih Mroué & Lina Saneh
Set design, graphic and animation: Samar Maakaroun
Director of photography: Sarmad Louis
Assistant technical production: Sarmad Louis & Thomas Köppel
Translation: Ziad Nawfal
Casting and production: Petra Serhal
Editing: Najib Zeitouni & Sarmad Louis
With: Nagham Abboud, Samir Abou Jaoudé, Thomas Bowles, Edy Gemaa, Raseel Hadjian, Colette Hajj, Wadad Hneine, Paul Khodr, Ibtisam Kishly, Eliane Mallat, Muriel Moukawem, Elie Njeim, Antoine Ozon & Najeeb Zeytouni
Voices: Abdallah Al Machnouk, Gheith El Amine, Raphael Fleuriet, Charbel Haber, May Kassem, Nesrine Khodr, Victoria Lupton, Diran Mardirian, Rabih Mroué, Ziad Nawfal & Lina Saneh
Chanting: Fatima Bazzi
Music: Mohammed Abdel Wahab & Jacques Brel