Two Years in the Making, “Al-Fawanees” Wows Them in Ramallah

By Maureen Meehan


Scenes from “Al-Fawanees,” the first musical play performed at the new Ramallah Cultural Palace (photo credit Maureen Meehan).

PALESTINIAN OUD player Nizar Rohana looked relieved and amazed as he bounded off the stage and headed for the door of the brand new Ramallah Cultural Palace. He had just finished playing with the Young Sound Forum of Central Europe in the first musical play to be performed in Palestine.

“The European musicians just arrived on Sunday, so we only had four days to rehearse together. We were afraid it would be a disaster,” Nizar said with a smile, knowing the evening’s debut performance was anything but. Lengthy standing ovations at the nightly sell-out performances that ran the first two weeks of August kept everyone’s spirits up—“at a time when spirits have never been lower,” Rohan added.

The musical play, “Al-Fawanees,” or “The Little Lantern,” based on Al-Qandeel Al-Saghir, a children’s story by Ghassan Kanafani, one of Palestine’s most beloved writers, is about a king who dies, leaving the throne to his only daughter. In his will, the king states she can become queen only if she brings light into the castle before a certain candle melts. The princess tries but fails to bring light into the dark castle, so she locks herself in her room.

After eight days, a note appears under her door telling her she will never find a solution by locking herself in. Then one night, an old man carrying a lantern knocks on the castle gates, but the guards refuse to let him in. When the princess learns about this, she orders the guards to find the man. Having failed to find him, the guards decide to invite everyone they see carrying a lantern into the castle, and thousands of lantern-bearers flock there. Seeing they can’t all fit, the princess orders the castle walls torn down. With everyone inside, the light from the lanterns beam brightly—as does the sun, which now shines into the castle because there are no longer walls. The bricks from the walls serve to build schools and hospitals for the kingdom’s inhabitants.

“It is very symbolic for us,” explained one of the theater ushers, “because the sun is being kept out of our lives by the wall Israel is building around us.”

Dedicated three months ago, the Cultural Center was built with the help of Japanese donors. The hall seats more than 700 people, has excellent acoustics, comfortable seating, state-of-the-art sound and lighting systems, a recording studio, and a control panel to oversee the electronics.

When the lights went down and the orchestra of 40 mostly German and Palestinian musicians began the overture, the curtain rose to reveal a sophisticated stage set of diaphanous screens, misty mountains and magical light beams that slowly exposed the children filling the stage in splendid costumes. They wore headset microphones close to their mouths through which they sang solos, duets and choral numbers as they danced and moved across the stage with professional timing and precision unlike anything ever seen in children’s theater in Palestine.

“We trained for almost two years…something like 350 hours, where we sang, danced, acted, learned all about theater and musicals,” said Zeena Amer, 15, one of two teens who shared the role of the princess, after a performance in which she admitted she was “not relaxed.” Nevertheless, her poise and clear singing voice in a complex role indicated her nervousness did not adversely affect her performance.

The idea to turn Kanafani’s story into a musical came about 12 years ago, explained Suhail Khoury, the musical’s composer and choreographer, and currently the director of the six-year-old Palestinian National Conservatory of Music. Ramallah-based poet and writer Wasim Kurdi wrote the lyrics and script, turning it into a musical play of 28 songs, then approached Khoury to compose it.

“I was very inspired by the idea of turning Kanafani’s story into a musical, and Wasim’s adaptation was beautiful,” Khoury said. “Ghassan has inspired many Palestinians, many people who have read him.”

The legendary Ghassan Kanafani, born in 1936 in Acre, was assassinated in Beirut in 1972 when Israelis blew up the car in which he was traveling with his niece Lamees, for whom he wrote Al Fawanees.

Two years ago, with help from the European Union, Khoury explained, he and acting producer Dahlia Habash began a talent search throughout the West Bank. They ended up auditioning 500 children between the ages of 9 and 15, mainly from schools in Ramallah and Bethlehem, due to the tight closure permanently in effect in the Israeli-occupied territories. Once the final cast of 58 children was chosen, the strenuous training began.

“There were several more children,” Khoury noted, “but, just during the rehearsal period, four of my most promising male voices broke. I’d hear that cracking sound and hope it was a cold or sore throat, but the next day, the boys would come back to rehearsal with an entirely different voice. We kept them on stage, though, in different parts,” he confided with a chuckle. “But that was the least of my worries…getting the kids safely to and from rehearsals—that was a challenge. And, of course, like all children at that age, and especially if they’re talented and feel special, they can be…let’s just say they have their own unique personalities.”

Assistant director and actor Edward Muallem confirmed that working with teens has its trying moments. “It was difficult to keep them focused for so many hours of rehearsals,” he acknowledged, “but, as you see, they rose to the challenge. The most beautiful part of the process was seeing them mature and become responsible, to wake up their artistic aesthetic,” said Muallem, manager and director of Ramallah’s Ashtar theater. Two of his own children, 11 and 14, had major roles in “Al-Fawaness.”

“Al-Fawanees” director Fernando Nopé was ecstatic about the children’s performance—and, indeed, about the entire two-year experience. A professional director from Sweden, Nopé felt the outcome was worth what many of his friends in Stockholm regarded as “dangerous work.” Crossing ever more volatile checkpoints and Israeli officials’ increasingly aggressive treatment of foreigners sympathetic to Palestinians has kept many would-be volunteers and activists away these past several years. Upon arriving at the Israeli airport, members of the Young Sound Forum of Central Europe, along with their conductor, Christophe Alstaedt, were very nearly deported once interrogators discovered the purpose of their visit. After five intense hours and the German Embassy’s intervention, the chamber orchestra finally was allowed to enter the country.

“If people say they are coming to visit, to help, to work with Palestinians, the Israeli authorities are simply not letting them into the country,” said one of the stagehands at the Ramallah theater. “Imagine, an orchestra nearly being turned away because they’re coming to play in a musical in Ramallah…racism of the first order.”

Director Nopé, originally from Colombia, added that the experience changed his life.

“As an artist, this entire experience was worth any ‘danger’ I may have confronted,” he stated. “These children could very likely be future leaders of the Palestinian people and, in addition to their talent, they have learned very valuable lessons about discipline—but more importantly, humility. We always stressed the concept of mutual collaboration and that they never forget their friends.”

According to Zeena Amer, a junior in high school, when she first began rehearsing “Al Fawanees” she thought she might like to be a performer when she grew up. As the two years passed, however, she decided she would become a music therapist, having seen the wonderous effects of music, song and dance on children, including herself.

Indeed, one of the more famous photos of an 8-year-old boy boldly lobbing a stone at an Israeli tank in 1987, during what is known as the first intifada, has been juxtaposed onto a poster hanging in the halls of the National Conservatory of Music—where, 10 years later, the same Ramzi Hussein is playing a violin.

Maureen Meehan is a free-lance journalist currently based in Madrid.