Fireworks

5/5 rating
Fireworks | Soho Theatre

It's a Palestinian play adapted in English called Al'ab Nariya or The Fireworks by Dalia Taha.
Let me begin by saying that I was so shaken and overwhelmed that even after the play it took me a few minutes to find my bearings.
The stage was very small at Jerwood upstairs, and the audience was small too but every seat was taken and people squeezed in to accommodate more. That's one cosy setting. So when they showed us living rooms on stage it felt like were all inside the living rooms making the play that much more intense.
The play focuses on two families living in a building in a war struck Palestine. Not that they wanted war. They just happened to be living somewhere where war happened to break out and now they have blackout tape and bombs dropping everywhere. While all the neighbours are leaving because of the bombing, these families haven't yet.
Simple stories of simple families caught in the extraordinary. This heart warming story shows the children of the fiercely protective families and how they deal with the loss of loved ones. 
A mother mourns for her young boy, a casualty of war, that she neglects her daughter. A father who protects his girl by making her believe the bomb raids are fireworks in the sky. A mother who starts believing in God when she is helpless in protecting her family. A wife who fears for her family when her husband starts to yearn for revenge. A boy whose games turn progressively abusive growing up in an environment of violence.
They used a startling electric blow out to change scenes and the feeling you are left with is electrifying fear. It keeps you glued from the beginning to the end. Every time the scene changes you feel electrocuted with a chill in your spine.
Every single actor was brilliant, specifically the two mothers. The play is real and so real that it stays with you for a long time. And you know this was what theatre was meant to do.

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