Interview with Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroué

Over the course of around the last thirty years, Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroué, both of whom were born in Lebanon in the sixties, have been mapping out a very particular path in theatre across the Middle East, Europe, and the American continent. The Portrait dedicated to them in the 2024 edition of the Festival d'Automne offers audiences a fascinating journey through their unique, multi-format work, including two new pieces, one of which is a duet with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, five “non-academic conferences" and the re-running of six emblematic shows dating from 2002 to 2019.

The duo quickly opted for a format resembling both performance and show, thereby blurring the boundary between reality and fiction. In a way that is reminiscent of the oriental tradition of evenings spent gathered around storytellers, there is always a story at the heart of each performance. Originating from real-life facts, the context for the various stories, accounts, and anecdotes is that of Lebanese society. The latter has been racked for decades by political crises and armed conflicts, and continues to be both prisoner of sectarian archaisms and as well as being prey to problems of a far more contemporary nature. A light-hearted tone and self-mockery are omnipresent in their impassive, structured confrontation with the facts and the disparity of opinions and behaviors. Nothing steers our reflection in any specific direction. We are free to see the truth in it. Or not.

 

 

You have been living in Berlin since 2013, but the thematic link with Lebanon is a frequent recurrence in your shows.

RM: Whenever you change countries, it does not mean you come with a clean slate. Thanks to or because of social networks, it is easy to maintain a near-permanent relationship with Lebanon, and we go back there regularly. It turns out that we decided to live in Berlin, a country in which we do not speak the language, and where it is difficult for us to completely immerse ourselves. So we are stuck in an in-between situation, which has both its advantages and disadvantages. We are never really there, nor here. It is a constant source of worry, and worry is good for our work.

 

What is your perception of this obsession with Lebanon and the Middle East?

LM: It is not something you can get rid of easily! It has been a constant source of joy in our lives, and also pain. And this is a subject that we know all about. Indeed, our familiarity with the situation is such that we know how to question it in a way that differs from usual approaches, or at least we hope so. First and foremost, we set out to question ourselves, and look into our certainties, our beliefs, over and over again. And because in Lebanon exists an audience which closely resembles us, a middle-class, secular, left-wing one, our wish is to nourish the debate, and to put in place an agora or forum theatre in which questions are asked but no answers are given.

 

What prompted you to make fiction that uses and subverts the codes of the documentary format?

LM: I would not be able to reconstruct the different stages but I suppose that the fact of living most of our lives in a country where it is difficult to distinguish between fiction and reality has something to do with it. Take, for example, the myth of the phoenix rising from its ashes, a myth with which many Lebanese identify themselves. It is a legend, but by repeating it, we have ended up behaving according to this pattern. The same goes for certain stories from history, interpreted in a very biased way. By believing in them, they take on a form of truth. There is a sort of promiscuity in Lebanon between rumors, lies and factual truth. We use a similar process in our work, both to deconstruct it, and denounce it, but also because we have to take into account this state of beliefs which impacts daily life in Lebanon in a very tangible way.
RM: There is where we find the question of how the history of an event, country or period is written. It does not amount to saying that all history is a fictional narrative, or that all history should be rejected. By the same token, it is important to be aware of the process by which it is manufactured. This allows us to understand history in a different way, and to accept the narration of those around us. Even if we are very definitely dealing with fiction and fabrication, it is vital to ask ourselves what is behind it, what it says. This is why, from our point of view, it is very dangerous to put spectators in a binary situation, such as that of fiction and reality. It does not matter, it is all real, it is all correct, but it is all fiction, and that is not a problem. The important thing is what is behind it, the hidden ideology or propaganda.LM: How can the history of the country be written? School history books get around this difficulty, but by avoiding controversial topics they are completely useless. There are also many Lebanese historians who have written books on Lebanon with entirely different ideological points of view. There is something true and false in each of them, depending on the reader's opinion. The same thing could be said about the French Revolution: which documents, events, or protagonists do we choose to highlight, and which do we choose to leave in the shadows? It is very clear in Lebanon, each party, be it secular or religious, is bound to write its own story. Thus, the same dilemma is omnipresent: which story to tell? We seek to deconstruct existing discourse rather than trying to point out the truth of something or the impossibility of establishing it.

 

How have you been affected by the current situation in the Middle East and more generally in the world?

LM: Watching the far right become more and more prevalent in so many countries has led to a growing form of unease over the last few years. This comes in addition to the many failures of the Arab Spring movement, and the impasse reached by many resistance movements, as well as the wars in Sudan, and Ukraine... The world is in a bad way, for sure. But with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict suddenly flaring up once again, we find ourselves in a very strange situation where we are looked down upon from all sides. In Lebanon, we are criticized for our "lukewarm" reaction to the Palestinian cause, due to our harsh criticism of religious and/or dictatorial tendencies and regimes, but also because of the generalized manipulation of the Palestinian cause. While in the West we are criticized for showing concern about the lives and rights of the Palestinian people. Perhaps this is a sign that our position is one of a happy medium? At present, there is an increasing tendency to view this conflict in a binary way, the good guys and the bad guys. It seems difficult to bring any form of nuance, and suggest that there are things which need to be reviewed on both sides and that there is still a possibility of living together, without us being seen as traitors by some people, or as extremists, pro-Islamists and terrorists by others. It is as though we are being told that the lives, security and well-being of some people can only be established at the expense of others, who can then – must even – perish. There is something crazy, unacceptable about it. All discussion seems impossible, and any form of debate abolished.RM: I would also like to highlight one phenomenon in particular, that of the tendency to consider that history begins at a specific moment, for example on October 7th, 2023, or September 11th, 2001. It is as nothing had happened before! Political speech and analysis is often developed in immediate reaction mode, with no form of perspective. This creates a superficial, violent confrontation in which we are on the lookout for the first one to make a mistake and who is then struck down with disapproval.LM: These simplistic visions that we seek to establish in relation to so many subjects appall us. And what is more, they are maintained by the so-called centre left and centre-right governments, which actually behave like the far right or communist regimes at the time of Stalin or the Stasi. It is precisely this type of manipulation that our work seeks to deconstruct.

 

 

Interview by Tony Abdo-Hanna and translation by Jonathan Waite, March 2024