The Museum

“We're orchestrating your final image, and we're going to sign it.”
The stage is drenched in darkness. From it echo heartbeats, pulsations marking the last day of a condemned man. In a halo of red light, a feverish face slowly appears, as a voice gives a detailed account of a terrorist attack on a contemporary art museum. Forty-nine children and a teacher were killed. The man who committed the attack, and who has been awaiting his execution for the past seven years, invites the police detective who arrested him to share his last meal. The men are alone in a locked room. Thus begins a disturbing, dangerous, and destructive dialogue, a game where the goal is to find a meaning to death. On stage, the body which is about to die slowly loses consistence to become no more than video, an image Bashar Murkus is decided to manipulate and abuse, just like any leader who understands the role of icons. The young Palestinian director dissects the origins of violence, the unspeakable “banality of evil,” and the similarities between individual terror and systemic terrors. With The Museum, he urges us to operate a shift in point of view to focus on the meaning of our actions, on the (im)moral injunctions which oppress us, and on our reasons for breaking free of them.

With Henry Andrawes, Ramzi Maqdisi

Text and direction Bashar Murkus
Dramaturgy and production Khulood Basel
Co-researcher Majd Kayyal
Music Nihad Awidat
Stage design Majdala Khoury
Lights and technical direction Muaz Aljubeh
Assistant direction Samera Kadry

Translation in french and english for the surtitles Lore Baeten
International touring as is presenting arts

Production Khashabi Theatre (Haïfa)
Co-production Schlachthaus Theatre (Bern), Moussem Nomadic Arts Centre (Brussels), Kunstencentrum Vooruit (Ghent)
With the support of Robert Weil Family Foundation, Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, Onda - Office national de diffusion artistique
In partnership with France Médias Monde