Video / Audio  Georgina Van Welie

Internationally acclaimed writer and director Sulayman Al Bassam in conversation with his collaborator Georgina Van Welie on making theatre across the cultural divide. Political by definition, performed in both English and Arabic with actors and a creative team from across the Arab world and the West, their projects have revisited Western texts from an Arab perspective and challenged Western perceptions of the Arab world. They will discuss their ten year Arab Shakespeare project, a recent production for The Comedie Francaise in Paris and Sulayman’s new play The Petrol Station. The new play follows the lives of a pair of half-brothers as they vie for the loyalty and favors of their aging father, all against the backdrop of a vicious civil war of a neighboring country.