Mariam greets us on the Royal Court stage, talking to us like an old friend. She introduces us to the Israeli military’s controversial tactic of “roof knocking”: dropping a non-lethal (but still explosive) bomb on a building to warn Gaza’s civilians of an impending airstrike. Israeli officials argue that this is a civil measure designed to minimise casualties by providing a five-minute “window time” for evacuation. However, A Knock on the Roof, written and performed by Khawla Ibraheem, reveals this tactic as yet another war instrument exacerbating the psychological torment of Gaza’s residents.
For that, Mariam practices endless running. How much can she take? Is she strong enough to carry her son and her luggage? How could she wake up him, and her mother from sleep? What if they are in the shower? What if she’s doing laundry, making coffee, and watching TV when the electricity is on? With endless what-ifs, she fills a pillowcase with books equal to her son’s weight, sets an alarm for 3 am, and drills her escape from her seven-floor apartment building where the lift doesn’t work.
While she’s practicing, her husband, Omar, who is away doing his Masters degree, constantly calls to check on her. Ibraheem is such a talented writer, skilfully interweaving trivial daily lives with thematic indications into a wartime narrative: gender roles (a marriage she never truly wanted, and her unfulfilled desire for further study), the Islamic culture (childhood memories of going to the mosque with her mother), and even consumerism (her skincare routine). Though war is rarely depicted outright, it has already seeped into the very capillaries of her life, intoxicating and infiltrating her thoughts, shaping the way she perceives the world. She cannot have enough what-ifs, but one “what-if” is surely left for us to ponder upon: what if there were no war at all?
Ibraheem’s performance is equally remarkable as her writing. She showcases a textbook standard of direct address and moments of genuine audience engagement: What would you take for the evacuation? Should I take Omar’s stuff? (Very firm “no” response from the audience). Do I act “normal” before the evacuation? She seamlessly switches her voice to perform Omar, her son Nour, and her mother who insists she wear a dress even in the shower, just in case the knock comes at that moment. Perhaps, having lived through too many wars, her mother seems more at ease than she does.
In the last part of the show, the design team eventually start to build up the inevitable moment of knocking. Oona Curley’s lighting changes from natural shared light into immense blue to reflect Mariam’s suffocating childhood in the mosque. Hana S. Kim’s projections cast images on Frank J. Oliva’s bare brick back wall, visualising Mariam’s relentless rehearsals. Given that the play has been developed for quite a long time with its director Oliver Butler, and has already been staged at several festivals, I would expect a little bit more effort in theatricality, particularly when seeing the extensive creative list of designers and their associates.
If you want to see a typically good solo performance from the last decade – a show that uses humour to dismantle sorrow, anger, and helplessness, that expertly employs shared light to engage its audience, that steadily builds to an emotional intensity for extremely sombre and grave topics like Gaza, that refuses to be jeopardised by shallow, hidden agenda, and that truly understands what it means to tell a story – then go see A Knock on the Roof.
