Palestinians use Animal Farm play to criticize local politics

AP ^ | 25/03/2009 | Staff

[forkinsocket]

George Orwell's 1945 satiric novel Animal Farm was performed with a distinctively Palestinian flavor in a debut production this week at the Freedom Theater in the Jenin refugee camp, taking aim at internal politics and the alliance between Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

In scene one of the play, Farmer Jones assassinates the animals' leader. In scene two, the animals - a few horses, a donkey, a crow, a chicken and some pigs - rally around a revolutionary sow named Snowball, who leads an uprising against their oppressive master.

"Intifada!" the animals scream, using the Arabic word for uprising. Strobe lights flash and heavy metal music blares as they chase Jones from the farm.

While addressing the classic theme of revolutionaries imitating their oppressors, the play's mere production here represents a revolution of sorts. The fact that such a school can raise the curtain in a camp once known for vicious battles with Israeli troops shows how far this part of the West Bank has come in its return to normalcy.

"But the choice of play also represents a challenge to Palestinian traditions," said the theater's general director Juliano Mer Khamis, the son of a Jewish mother and Palestinian father.

"We lack a culture of criticism. We lack a culture of free thinking," said the bearded Mer Khamis, dressed in a black shirt, jeans and jacket. "One of our roles is to challenge this."

"Such close-mindedness turned the theater into a target for protests, some of them violent," said Mer Khamis, a stage and film actor in Israel. Last week, someone lit fire to a neighboring music school, he said, although it was stopped before spreading to the theater.

[forkinsocket]

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[wombtotomb]

wow. just wow.

[Frank_2001]

Do they realize the revolution is led by a PIG? They’ll have to substitute a different species, I suppose/s

[wombtotomb]

LOL

[Nipplemancer]

‘four legs good, too legs baaaaaad!’