Overview
A compelling story of two families - one Palestinian, one Israeli - forced by history into an intimacy they didn't choose.
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 they dare to return to
their home in Haifa. They are ready to find someone else living where
they once did, but nothing can prepare them for the encounter they both
desire and dread with the son they had to leave behind.
Ghassan Kanafani's classic novella Returning to Haifa
has been adapted for the stage by Naomi Wallace and Ismail Khalidi. The
play premiered at the Finborough Theatre, London, in February 2018 to
coincide with the seventieth anniversaries of both the Nakba or
'catastrophe' - the mass dispossession of the Palestinians in 1948 - and
the foundation of the State of Israel.