Review: Fireworks (Al'Ab Nariya), Royal Court

"Whoever gets back to the front door first without getting shot, wins"
Fireworks 
Running time: 90 minutes (without interval)
Booking until 14th March


In a nameless and besieged Palestinian town Lubna and Khalil, 11 and 12 respectively, live with the consequences of growing up in the middle of a war. Khalil loves the Ninja Turtles, oscillates between violence and sensitivity, teeters on the brink of adolescence and perplexes his parents — played with conviction by Nabil Elouahabi and Shereen Martin.
For her part Lubna feasts on the fireworks that illuminate the night sky. Except, of course, they’re not fireworks but bombs. She must also deal with her first period and realising she doesn’t have any proper friends, while her parents (Sirine Saba and Saleh Bakri) struggle to make sense of the death of their son. The children are in effect housebound. Everyone around them fears for their safety, and their psychological wounds fester. By concentrating on their experience, Dalia Taha’s play offers a refreshingly oblique perspective on the conflict in Gaza.
Director Richard Twyman elicits poised and tender performances from the younger cast members (on press night Yusuf Hofri as Khalil and Shakira Riddell-Morales as Lubna). The result is a painful, unsettling vision of precarious lives.

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