Review: Between the River & the Sea, Royal Court Theatre

Yousef Sweid enters the stage armed with a grin and relaxed demeanour, instantly establishing an easy rapport with the audience. He gestures behind himself towards a pile of flags and banners on a chair and announces that he has brought some souvenirs from over the years, most of which are protest banners denouncing him and his show as traitorous. The title of the production, Between the River and the Sea, refers to the territory between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea encompassing modern day Israel and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Few of us can be unaware of the constant warfare ongoing in that region, and in particular the forcible displacement of a majority of the Arab population and the consequent establishment of Israel in 1948. 

But it’s OK, Sweid declares, as he throws the banners off-stage: “I’m not going to talk about…the war in Gaza, I am going to talk about – my divorce!”

What follows is a deeply human experience filled with humour and compassion. It’s a semi-autobiographical piece: Yousef is a Christian-Arab-Palestinian-Israeli living in Berlin raising two Jewish-Arab-Austrian children, from two different mothers. He is undergoing his second divorce and his soon-to-be ex-wife wants to take his daughter back to Israel, over which he is understandably unhappy as he declares: “Is that the best environment you choose to raise our kid?!”

Sweid mostly performs in the first person using the genre of stand-up, although he moves to other voices, such as his Canadian domiciled Jewish father, his son and other key figures from his life. The lighting is excellent, seemingly bare and focused on Sweid as the stand-up, before switching to warmer moments that illuminate the story of family life.

It’s a personal piece and Sweid describes his upbringing with flair and humour, traversing as it does, the multitude of identities inherent in location and religion. “We are a completely normal family”, he declares, an “Arab-Palestinian-Jewish-Austrian-Romanian-Christian-Family”.

Through his performance we learn about his upbringing, his education, his first love, his friends, his children and the realities of war. We share his delight when he describes his son’s inability to understand the differences between Jewish, Christian and Arab, marking, as it does, an upbringing unhindered by religious demarcation. But mostly we learn of the global reality of messy modern-day life and how nonsensical and divisive religious wars are when most people live in an ever-evolving intersectionality of identities and locations. That and, of course, the mind-numbing horrific violence that permanently exists in that region. 

Sweid ends by describing his return home to find his children from different mothers hanging out together watching TV: normal family life. His son has been tasked with writing an utopian fantasy as a school assignment which Yousef reads out loud. In the form of an imaginary journey, we follow the story of an idyllic weekend which takes the traveller from Istanbul to Mecca, through Beirut to Tel Aviv, Tehran, Jerusalem, Gaza and Alexandria. It’s a weekend of pleasure and fun, celebrating the best of the weather and the scenery, art galleries, music and theatre. And no one asks to see your passport: there is no border control because there are no borders. 

And there is a moment’s pause as the audience gasp at the potential for humankind that this allows.

Written by Isabella Sedlak and Yousef Sweid
Director: Isabella Sedlak
Associate Lighting Designer/Relighter: Skylar Turnbull Hurd
Lead Producer: Jack Farrell
Production Manager: Zara Drohan

Between the River and the Sea plays at the Royal Court Theatre until Saturday 9 May.