College and University Monitor

Returning to Haifa, by Ghassan Kanafani, adapted by Naomi Wallace & Ismail Khalidi

In 1948, Palestinian couple Said and Safiyya fled their home during the Nakba. Now, in the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War, the borders are open for the first time in twenty years, and the couple dare to return back to their home in Haifa. They are prepared – of course – to find someone else living where they once did. Yet nothing could prepare Said and Safyya for the encounter they both desire and dread.

How does contemporary theatrical practice reflect shifting conditions of possibility for political solidarity and mobilization? How can the art of the theater be used as a tool of and for political reflection, and research? In RETURNS we aim to explore these possibilities of theatre and performance, in what is, both in Palestine and the US, a moment of reactionary ascendancy, and increasingly forbidding limits on progressive political action.

For more info, visit http://palestine.mei.columbia.edu/events-fall-2019/returning-to-haifa

This production is directed by Kevin Hourigan.

The reading will be followed by a Q&A with Ismail Khalidi and Naomi Wallace, moderated by Alisa Solomon (Professor & Director, Arts Concentration, M.A. Program, Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University).


Free and Open to the Public
Please RSVP: https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pe/10459620

The Katharina Otto-Bernstein Screening Room
Lenfest Center for the Arts
615 West 129th Street
New York, NY 10027