Photo Flash: RETURNING TO HAIFA Takes the Stage at Finborough Theatre

The human impact of conflict is at the heart of a compelling tale of a Palestinian family returning to the home they once fled, only to find it occupied by an Israeli family.Written by Ghassan Kanafani, widely considered one of Palestine's greatest novelists, Returning to Haifa receives its English-language premiere in a co-adaptation by American playwright Naomi Wallace and Beirut born Ismail Khalidi.

Returning to Haifa tells the story of two families - one Palestinian, one Israeli - forced by history into an intimacy they didn't choose. In 1948, Palestinian couple Said and Safiyya fled their home during the Nakba. Now, in the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War, the borders are open for the first time in twenty years, and the couple dare to return to their home in Haifa. They are prepared - of course - to find someone else living where they once did. Yet nothing could prepare Said and Safyya for the encounter they both desire and dread: the son they had to leave behind, and what he has now become...

Coinciding with the 70th anniversaries of both the Nakba or "catastrophe" - the mass dispossession of the Palestinians in 1948 - and the foundation of the State of Israel, Returning to Haifa tells a story of heartbreak with frontline immediacy. Originally commissioned by New York's Public Theater, the production was cancelled because of political pressure. It will now receive its world premiere at the Finborough Theatre.

Playwright Naomi Wallace says, "This is a drama about the Middle East, certainly, but it is also very much about ourselves today. This is a political drama that is also intensely intimate and personal. It is not only about exile and resistance, but also about falling in love, losing the things we believe in, and finding something surprising to reignite our hope."

Ghassan Kanafani (1936-1972) is widely regarded as one of Palestine's greatest novelists, writing some of the most admired stories in modern Arabic literature. He was also an intellectual and political activist. Kanafani was assassinated by Mossad in Beirut at the age of 36, along with his seventeen-year-old niece, Lamees Najim. His obituary read, "He was a commando who never fired a gun, whose weapon was a ball-point pen, and his arena the newspaper pages."

The novella has been adapted by Naomi Wallace, an award-winning American playwright, and Ismail Khalidi, who was born in Beirut and raised in America. Wallace's previous plays includes Heart of America (Bush Theatre) and Slaughter City(RSC), and her awards include an Obie and a MacArthur. Ismail Khalidi's plays have been produced in Minneapolis, Atlanta and Chile. The pair previously collaborated on Inside/Outside: Six Plays from Palestine and the Diaspora.

Director Caitlin McLeod is the Artistic Director of new-writing company The Coterie and has formerly been part of the Old Vic 12. Her productions include Polar Bears (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Commonwealth (Almeida Theatre) and And I And Silence (with Naomi Wallace), which sold out at the Finborough and transferred Off Broadway.

www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk

Photo Credit: Scott Rylander

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