SCORCHED Comes to Expats Theatre This Month

Expats Theatre will present the live stage production of Scorched (original French title Incendies) by Lebanese-Québecois playwright Wajdi Mouawad opening Saturday, September 23rd at 7:30 pm and closing October 15th at Atlas Performing Arts Center, Lab 2, 1333 H St NE in Washington, DC. Scorched is directed by Karin Rosnizeck, underscored by a newly composed, partially improvised live soundtrack by musician/composer Tina Chancey and includes movement work by Natasha Mirny. Many of the musical and movement elements were developed during a week-long artist residency (July 17-21, 2023) at Kennedy Center REACH offered to Expats Theatre as part of the Kennedy Center’s social impact program initiative. 

The production is supported by the Québec Government Office in New York.

The play:  After their mother’s death, the adult twins Simon and Janine are asked to search for their father and brother in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. As each of them navigates the clues left behind, they discover their mother got pregnant as a teenager and had to give up the child. Mother Nawal spent her lifetime searching for this son in a country torn apart by civil war. In the story’s dramatic conclusion, the final piece of Nawal’s dark past is revealed enabling the twins to heal the wounds of intergenerational family trauma. 

Scorched combines a heightened poetic style, rich in allegory and symbolism with elements of Greek tragedy and mythology, ancient folktale and contemporary realism, interweaving narratives from the past (civil war in an unnamed Middle Eastern country) and present (contemporary Montreal, Québec). Like in many of his works, Mouawad explores the impact of war and violence, broken family bonds and intergenerational trauma, the experience of exile and displacement, the psychology of revenge, the force of love and redemption.

The playwright:  Wajdi Mouawad was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1968. At the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war, his family fled the country and settled in Paris, France for a few years, before emigrating to Québec in 1983. Referring to his hybrid cultural identity, he describes himself as "Lebanese in his childhood, French in his way of thinking and Québécois in his theatre. That's what happens when you spend your childhood in Beirut, your adolescence in Paris and then try to become an adult in Montréal."  His foremost sources of inspiration are childhood, war and exile. After graduating from The National Theatre School Canada, Mouawad won praise as a performer in Alphonse and the director of Disco Pigs, Oedipe Roi, and Three Sisters. He has served as the artistic director of Theatre de Quat’Sous in Montreal and the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. He currently is the Artistic Director of The National Theatre de la Colline in Paris. Scorched (Incendies) is part of Mouawad’s acclaimed “Blood Promises Cycle” –Tidelines (Littoral), Forests (Forets), Heavens (Ciels).

The Cast:  Scorched features a cast of 10 playing 17 different characters and chorus/ensemble:

Deema Turkomani as Nawal (14-19), ensemble.

Lisa Hill-Corley as Nawal (35-65) and Jihane (Nawal’s mother), ensemble.

Neagheen Homaifar as Janine, Nawal’s daughter and Simon’s twin sister.

and Ahmad Kamal as Nawal’s son, Janine’s twin brother.

Steve Lebens as Notary Alphonse Lebel and the Doctor.

Ramsey Zeitouneh as young Nawal’s lover Wahab, nurse Antoine, Nihad and tour guide.

Melan Perez as Nawal’s best friend Sawda, midwife Elhame, ensemble.

Hilary Kacser as Nawal’s grandmother Nazira, wise village woman Abdessamad, ensemble.

George Kassouf as boxing coach Ralph, janitor Fahim, peasant Malak, warlord Chamsedinne,

a militiaman, ensemble.

Emel Haddad: war photographer, newspaper photographer, TV woman, ensemble, u/s Janine. 

Production and Creative Team:

Director: Karin Rosnizeck

Assistant director: Shana Laski,

Stage Manager Caroline Johnson

Set Designer: Simone Schneeberger

Lighting Designer: Ian Claar

Projection Designer: Hailey LaRoe

Costume Designer: Jeremy Pritchard

Movement/Fight/Intimacy: Natasha Mirny

Technical Assistant: Laura Schlachtmeyer

Improvising Musician: Tina Chancey 

ExPats Theatre is a 501 (c) (3) venture founded in 2019 by Karin Rosnizeck to bring contemporary international plays to Washington D.C. Previous productions include: Surfacing by Russian-Austrian playwright Julya Rabinowich, Einstein’s Wife by Serbian playwright Snežana Gnjidic (truncated by COVID in 2020, remount in 2022), Pankrác’ 45 by Czech playwright Martina Kinská, Christmas Eve by German playwright and novelist Daniel Kehlmann, and The Body of a Woman as a Battlefield by French- Romanian playwright Matéi Visniec.

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