The Other Side of the Garden

After the success of Above Zero, Ossama Halal, a Syrian director living in Lebanon and the Koon Theater Group collective are offering a loose adaptation of Story of a Mother, a Hans Christian Andersen story.

Echoing what life is like for families living in those Middle Eastern countries devastated by war, the artist tells the tale of a mother’s initiatory quest after Death has taken her son. A journey punctuated by enigmas and ordeals where, at each stop she must leave behind something of herself, as a sacrifice or a renunciation. She leaves her eyes, her hair, her voice…

How many mothers and entire families have been torn apart and have had to throw themselves into a search for their dead? When war is a daily reality it takes existence away from beings and the communities to which they belong. It retains the lives to take them towards an unknown fate. Faced with so much violence, humankind is often incapable of acting and loses a bit of itself in this impotence.

To address sacrifice and deal-making as survival techniques, Ossama Halal uses a distancing technique of symbolic motifs, the puppet, and costumes in Sufi colors. In Natacha Belova he finds a partner of choice to create this universe.