Review: The Bridge, Bush Theatre ★★★★

Alaa Shehada in The Bridge at the Bush Theatre

Photo Credit Craig Fuller

Alaa Shehada is superb at balancing the everyday humour in a story as well as the humanity. In this way the pain and the difficulty is exposed. He achieved this with the successful Horse of Jenin and has done the same with The Bridge, now at the Bush Theatre in Shepherd’s Bush. Co-written with and directed by Sam Beale, it is presented by Palestine Comedy Club in association with Bush Theatre.

“The Bridge” is the crossing in the Jordan Valley that is the only way Palestinians in the West Bank are permitted to leave or return home. This short journey, just 180 metres, takes Shehada 12 hours as he moves through three checkpoints, various intrusive searches and bureaucratic process. We are just there for a part of the journey. Every day, real people have to do this, and then often return the same way.

The simple set contains just two things when we start: a bench and a yellow container. Lily Dawford‘s lighting is warm, and birdsong greets us, for the harvest season has begun. The container is the vessel that carries his family’s olive oil from Palestine to the family they are separated from in Jordan. With it comes the smell of home and a powerful sense of history. This is oil the family has harvested and pressed for generations, so it is not just oil but a family heirloom, a memory of old days. Projected olive trees remind us what is at stake.

Shehada plays every other character too, and they underline the everyday aspect of this journey and that everyone must make it. The elderly Haja, the youth just off for fun in Amman, the hopeful student heading to Europe. He is an able character actor, and his wide family, varied officials and bus passengers are all amusingly portrayed. He also has good rapport with the audience, making lots of eye contact so that we feel in conversation. Some audience participation was slightly more effective than others, depending on who was chosen. A meta moment went down well with the audience: an officer, Shehada tells us, who wants him to make a show about “The Bridge” and play it at Shepherd’s Bush. The laughter is real and generous, which makes the quiet that follows all the more telling.

The black and white projection is clever but perhaps works better for those sitting in front. From the side seats, a choice had to be made between looking at the projection or looking at Shehada. Some of his facial acting was also lost to us.

Peppered through is audio of British commentary from a century ago, also projected at the rear so there can be no mistake.

The carelessness of the colonial carve-up is reflected in the exchange between British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour and diplomat Mark Sykes, looking at a map of the region:
“What do you mean to give the French?” asks Balfour.
Sykes replies: “I should like to draw a line from the ‘e’ in Acre to the last ‘k’ in Kerkuk.”

Or even more dismissive, General Edmund Allenby recalling Prime Minister Lloyd George:
“Allenby, I want Jerusalem as a Christmas present.“

The sound, composed and designed by Julius Pollux Rothlaender, is very effective: music, and phone calls from relatives (including “annoying uncle”) all demanding goods be passed from one side to the other. There is also an eerie discordance when he is in the liminal border states. His nerves show as he checks white card, green card, passport, ID. In these moments, destinies could change, and we see they do, as hopeful travellers are removed from the line. A student with a visa does not get through, and the despair is plain. The pacing of the play at points lags and repeats, though in a sense this reflects the journey and the bureaucracy itself. While the British may have called this Allenby Bridge, it is “Dignity Bridge” to Palestinians. Or as Shehada shows us, indignity bridge.

Throughout, the simple dream of a Palestinian airport, making this bridge journey unnecessary, is portrayed in various forms of imaginings that marry the practical and the whimsical sense of what it is to be Palestinian. Among them are an airport full of olive trees and an immersive “The Bridge” experience, complete with searches.

Those imagined olive trees make the real ones all the more tragic. We have been laughing, and then the ending underlines what happens when Israeli settlers enclose and take over olive farms. The audience goes pindrop silent. It is a loss of land, of love and of story.

By taking us on a journey alongside him, for a brief moment we get our own taste of the hardships and frustrations. Through humour, we are comfortable in Shehada’s company, even as he takes us on an uncomfortable, but real, journey.

The Bridge runs at the Bush Theatre until 11 November, 1 hour 20 minutes, with most performances already sold out.

[Thank you to Bush Theatre for a gifted ticket for an honest review.]

Images: Craig Fuller

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