Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Between The River And The Sea
Yousef Sweid & Isabella Sedlak (Maxim Gorki Theater)
Genre: Drama, Political, Theatre
Venue: Playground 2 at ZOO Playground
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
An hour long solo drama where you will learn a lot about the nuance and complexity of life and love between the Arab, Palestinian and Jewish communities in Israel, and their diaspora.
Review
The title of this drama is an incendiary phrase for British eyes, indeed people in Britain have been arrested and had their careers impacted by using it. So you can be forgiven for expecting a more hard-hitting drama, with more tension and jeopardy than is served up in this calm, personal and very professional storytelling hour.
The play is performed by solo actor Yousef Sweid who was born in Haifa, Israel and is a Palestinian Israeli. He grew up between these two worlds and is keen to share with us his struggle to deal with straddling that complexity. We hear of Sweid’s life from childhood to the present day, explaining how the different cultures he inhabits have given him many “truths” as seen by those different communities. May be they are all true to some extent, and yet many are contradictory. Sweid is a capable, endearing actor who oozes authenticity and compassion for all, so we listen attentively as he shares his personal stories, some moving, some charming, a few funny. For example, a child called Avi at kindergarten who had already learned anti-Arab taunts. It was Sweid’s first inkling that he was different; Arab. Sweid shares with us other examples of how he tries to navigate a world where he always finds himself “in between”. As someone with a Muslim father and a Catholic mother, this strand of the drama had a particularly moving resonance and truth for me.
We hear of other school friends who are Jewish Israelis, Daniel and later Selma who became (almost) lifelong friends.
As intelligent and authentic as the stories and the telling of them is, this play feels more like being at a dinner party and hearing a great raconteur’s tales, and there’s nothing wrong with that choice of style. A few props (demonstration signs) are rifled through at the start, and then no more props are used, nor are there any scenery or costume changes. Movement is between a microphone and a chair, to indicate change of character. The theatre space is not ideal, very wide and not very deep, making it difficult for Sweid to engage with such a widely spread audience.
There were quite a few moving and insightful storylines introduced, (his divorce, his relationship with his father, his daughter’s schooling, his son’s growing realisation of his complex identity) but few of the storylines had climaxes. We got to know the characters well, and the complexity of their situations was fascinating, but I wanted more plot development, to be told stories that took us on satisfying story journeys, rather than partial vignettes of stories without endings. Consequently, just over half way through the play, I felt the audience were flagging. I hope the team will re-think what the play does at that crucial 40 minute point in an hour long drama. It is just at that time when attention starts to wane, when dramas with a more static staging will struggle to keep the audience’s energy level and concentration, so this was not the time in the play to dim the lights and give us ten minutes of subdued comments between three or four different characters who were difficult to follow. It’s a pity because some crucial friendships were ended as a result of that interaction (and the current situation in Israel/Gaza) and that lost impact as a result. The energy was however regained in the final ten minutes and this remains a play well worth seeing, especially if you are keen to understand and learn the nuances of the complex mix of cultures, religions and societies that is the Israeli-Palestinian melting pot. I learned a lot.
