Presented at Unity Theatre by Good Chance, as part of Liverpool Arab Arts Festival, A Grain of Sand is a one-woman play written and directed by Elias Matar, first performed last year to open London Palestine Film Festival.
The story told is a fictionalised one, but draws its content entirely from the direct experiences of real children, as told in Leila Boukarim and Asaf Luzon’s anthology, A Million Kites: Testimonies and poems from the children of Gaza.
The play features Sarah Agha in a performance of breathtaking power and nuance. She principally plays the role of Renad, a young girl who recalls the lessons and storytelling related to her by her grandmother, and emulates her grandmother’s teachings in the way she relates her own memories. On a stage bare but for a mound of sand, a single chair and an ever-changing projected backdrop, Agha takes us by turns through the love she has for her family, her friends and her home, and through the unimaginable horror of bombing, destruction and the loss of everyone she holds dear.
What is especially clever about both Matar’s writing and direction and the dramaturgy by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson is the way in which it simultaneously separates so many individual perspectives and combines them into one. Every now and again during the telling of her own story, Agha steps out of the centre of the stage into a narrow spotlight, and a line that effectively comes from her own narrative is shown to be the words of another child, with that child’s name appearing on the backdrop. In this way, the voices of numerous young people are drawn together into a single thread.
This echoes the idea that each life is like a single grain of sand, and sand is used as a metaphor several times throughout the play, alongside a great deal more symbolism in recurring themes in the work. Key among these is that of Anqaa, the phoenix of Palestinian folklore, which symbolises rebirth and renewal. While the kites of the source book’s title don’t feature heavily in the narrative, it is interesting to note another kite reference that springs to mind in watching this play: there are more than a few moments when the dramatisation of The Kite Runner is called to mind, as much as anything in the way in which both plays view war, horror, loss and hope through the eyes of children.
Towards the end of the play, Agha stands with grains of sand trickling through her fingers, as the names of children lost to the war fade into the distance in a seemingly endless word-cloud on the set behind her. Renad describes crates of humanitarian aid hailing from the sky almost like more bombs, threatening to kill people as easily as save them, but their contents become yet another parable as her story draws to a close.
The final message is that this is a story that needs to be constantly retold, and whilst this performance is a standalone event, the company plan to continue reviving it as long as they can find audiences willing to watch and listen. If the visibly moved capacity audience tonight are anything to go by, it is a story that people are more than willing to hear and engage with.
The book A Million Kites on which this play is based is available to buy here, with all proceeds donated to aid organizations helping the children of Gaza.
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| Sarah Agha in A Grain of Sand - Picture © Good Chance |
Star rating: 5 stars
This review was originally written for publication by Good News Liverpool
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