Al-Tamma (“The Catastrophe”)

Nearly a year has passed since the war in Lebanon drastically escalated, with Israeli bombs and fighting with Hezbollah forcing more than a million people to flee their homes.

While a ceasefire is technically in place, the bombing continues and life is far from back to normal. Published six months after the truce, The Lebanon Displacement Diaries, a participatory journalism project by The New Humanitarian, offered a glimpse of what displacement really means: an uprooting that for many – even those who have been able to return home – feels like it hasn’t truly stopped.

“The feeling of leaving is like tearing your soul from your body. You have to leave everything behind, but you want to take everything with you. You have to get to safety, but for you the safe place is the one you left behind.” - Nour

Now, those stories are coming to the stage. Al-Tamma (“The Catastrophe”), created in partnership with Lebanon’s Laban Theater, is a live, interactive play in Arabic that brings the diaries to the stage, and invites the audience to share their own experiences of displacement. Featuring original music, it is both theatre and conversation; a way to make sure the voices of those most impacted by Lebanon’s war are still included in Lebanon’s cultural life and civic discourse.

*Please note that Al-Tamma will be performed in Arabic.