rana haddad . pierre hage boutros x atelier de recherche . théâtre de beyrouth . ain el mraisse . 02 | 03 / 2001

théâtre de beyrouth. Previously a BMW repairs pit, transformed during the sixties into a theatre. The arabic spoken plays gradually replaced the french repertoire. It is in this premise that the arabic / lebanese language specific to the theatre was born. During the war it had intensive experimental activities that were never documented. It used to be the last independent theatre that existed in beirut. It was meant to close for good in 2004.

 In october 2000 the ‘theatre de beyrouth’ invited us to be part of shams annual festival. We took an armchair from the theatre, placed it in the window and had it cut in two very slowly! This armchair has been there for 36 year, placed but not fixed, next to the lateral wall of the theatre. it took us a month to have it cut in two. The story of this armchair is not an isolated one, it is part of stories collected in the quarter of ain el mraissé and others that came out from the theatre itself. We distributed a tale per day, a flyer per day. Here is one of them: article N#3 : in case of a censorship infringement, the representation of the play will be banned and the theatre will be closed for a year , as a decision taken by the head of the general security department. the accountable will incur a prison penalty that can vary between 1 to 3 years,  and a fine of 5 thousand to 15 thousand lebanese pounds [approximately 3 to 6 euros]. The minimal charge cannot be less then a month…

The chair generated a narrative.  People walking by made up their  thoughts  and opinions about what was going on. They initiated a “save the chair” campaign. The street vendors and people from the neighborhood that were always intimidated by the theater and never dared to enter it, were intrigued and were attracted in to see the festival. The outcome was a modest success with a full newspaper coverage, a sponsor for a publication that include all people’s reactions and involvements, with of course, it goes without saying a self censorship, with an 18 months extra to the life span of the theatre.  The latter was not our aim but rather an outcome from people’s reaction to the scene of the chair being cut in two. And in some way it became iconic: it made the cover image of Hanan Haj Ali’s Thesis book that she presented 10 years later. An anecdotic contamination took place as part of the outcomes, Freykeh festival (takes place in  a silk factory at fraykeh village) wanted the SAME installation for their opening day.

In such work the narratives plays a crucial role, whereby a discourse will always be there when a problematic has been erased.

“WhaT a map cuts up, the story cuts across”

Michel de Certeau

réflexion violente sur la ville et le théâtre | l’orient le jour | 2001

alba | lebanon | https://www.alba.edu.lb/ar/fr/act1en.html

rana haddad . pierre hage boutros . GREGORY BUCHAKJIAN x atelier de recherche . festival freykeh . 02 | 03 / 2001

"(...) but the disney enterprise goes beyond the imaginary. disney, the precursor, the grand initiator of the imaginary as virtual reality, is now in the process of capturing all the real world to integrate it into its synthetic universe, in the form of a vast "reality show" where reality itself becomes a spectacle [vient se donner en spectacle], where the real becomes a theme park. the transfusion of the real is like a blood transfusion, except that here it is a transfusion of real blood into the ex-sanguine universe of virtuality. after the prostitution of the imaginary, here is now the hallucination of the real in its ideal and simplified version. (...) but we are no longer in a society of spectacle, which itself has become a spectacular concept. it is no longer the contagion of spectacle that alters reality, but rather the contagion of virtuality that erases the spectacle. disneyland still belonged to the order of the spectacle and of folklore, with its effects of entertainment [distraction] and distanciation [distance]. disney world and its tentacular extension is a generalized metastasis, a cloning of the world and of our mental universe, not in the imaginary but in a viral and virtual mode. we are no longer alienated and passive spectators but interactive extras [figurants interactifs]; we are the meek lyophilized members of this huge "reality show." it is no longer a spectacular logic of alienation but a spectral logic of disincarnation; no longer a fantastic logic of diversion, but a corpuscular logic of transfusion and transubstantiation of all our cells; an enterprise of radical deterrence of the world from the inside and no longer from outside, similar to the quasi-nostalgic universe of capitalistic reality today. being an extra [figurant] in virtual reality is no longer being an actor or a spectator. it is to be out of the scene [hors-scene], to be obscene. (...) "

jean baudrillard's "disneyworld company”

published on march 4, 1996 in the parisian newspaper, liberation. translated by francois debrix