Region | Lebanon
Drama therapy enlivens Lebanese jail
Cigarette smoke wafts through a hall in Lebanon's biggest jail where an all-male jury is arguing over whether an accused murderer should be hanged.
- Reuters
- Published: 23:36 December 25, 2008
Roumiyeh, Lebanon: Cigarette smoke wafts through a hall in Lebanon's biggest jail where an all-male jury is arguing over whether an accused murderer should be hanged.
The 12 men, all prisoners themselves, strive for a unanimous verdict. Tempers rise, insults flow, blows are threatened.
Then someone forgets his lines. Laughter erupts. They start again.
Occasionally the frustration leads to a real quarrel until the firm voice of director Zeina Daccache restores order.
In jeans and a black sweater, she castigates, coaxes and cajoles her novice actors, who sulk, talk back and then perform with renewed gusto, just like their counterparts in any theatre.
Some tell their own stories in monologues. Hawilo acts out a comical prison visit with his mother who unwittingly got him convicted of dealing drugs instead of just possession.
"Good news son, I told the judge you never smoke hashish, you only sell it!"
Hawilo mimics her saying, before he pretends to faint.
For a few hours each week, these forgotten men taste a world beyond the bars of Roumiyeh, a crowded prison near Beirut that houses Islamist fighters as well as 4,000 ordinary criminals.
Since she launched her drama therapy project in February, Daccache has won the respect and affection of the convicts, who call her 'Abu Ali', reckoning her to be as tough as any man.
Anwar, a tall, shaven-headed Iraqi in combat pants and boots, who is serving a 15-year sentence for murder, said she was "like a sister" who had unlocked a door.
"It's a kind of freedom for all of us," he said. "It's given me courage to be with others. Before, it was as if we were all wearing masks, but I have discovered a new person in myself.
"I was very nervous, jumping on any mistakes, I was impatient and dangerous, but now I take my time, count to 10."
Anwar, who has not seen his family in Baghdad for 11 years, said the theatre project, in which he plays the jury foreman, had channelled his anger and saved him from fatal despair.
"I was going to commit suicide in the new year, but I have changed my mind," he said.
"Before I felt like a criminal, like garbage, but now I feel respected, even by the prison officers."
Unusual
Daccache's venture, sponsored by a local human rights group, and funded by the European Union while being managed by the Ministry of State for Administrative Reform, is unusual in the Arab world.
"I thought: Lebanon? No, it's mission impossible," said the 30-year-old actress and drama therapist, who was inspired by visiting a similar project in an Italian prison in 2002.
It took her a year to get the money and another to win the go-ahead from wary authorities, but the prisoners are now set to stage their play for guests at the jail in February and March.
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