Watch Jenin Freedom Theatre’s “Suicide Note from Palestine”

Amal, the lead character in Freedom Theatre's 'Suicide Note from Palestine'

A scene in Suicide Note from Palestine. (Jenin Freedom Theatre)

The Jenin-based Freedom Theatre will be giving international audiences the chance to view one of its productions, Suicide Note from Palestine, via online streaming this weekend.

The live performance will take place at 15:00 (Palestine time, which is GMT+2) tomorrow (20 December). This will be repeated at a later time the same day, and again on Sunday, all via the theater’s live stream channel.

Suicide Note from Palestine is a piece of contemporary theater written specially for the Jenin-based company and was first staged in April 2013. According to the theater company’s website, it features Amal (played by Christine El Hodali), embodying her country, Palestine, lying in a hospital bed.

Her heartbeat has stopped and medical staff wearing UN-marked coats are trying to resurrect her. Amal (the Arabic word for “hope”) has decided to die as a political act.

The play is a damning indictment of the complicity of the European, American and Arab political elites in the Israeli occupation and repression of Palestine.

The play is performed in Arabic; a scene breakdown in English is available here.

The play opened earlier this week in the Jenin refugee camp. Following its run in Jenin, it will be performed elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, visiting Hebron and Bethlehem. The play is also scheduled to tour the US in September 2015.

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Sarah Irving

Sarah Irving's picture

Sarah is a freelance writer and editor, author of a biography of Leila Khaled and of the Bradt Guide to Palestine, co-editor of A Bird is Not a Stone (a volume of Palestinian poetry translated into the languages of Scotland), and a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh. She has worked and traveled in Palestine since 2001.