A Vancouver theatre festival planning to show a play set in Israel that Victoria’s Belfry Theatre had opted to cancel has now also pulled the production — with the playwright’s consent.
Christopher Morris’s The Runner, told from the point of view of an Israeli emergency-response volunteer ostracized for saving the life of a Palestinian woman accused of killing an Israeli soldier, sparked protests and duelling petitions in Victoria that argued both for and against the cancellation.
The Belfry announced on Jan. 2 it would cancel the show, which was to be part of the SPARK Festival in March, saying presenting it now would not ensure the “well-being of all segments of our community.”
The theatre had been vandalized, with the words “Free Palestine” spray-painted outside the entrance prior to the cancellation.
Vancouver’s PuSh Festival was set to show The Runner Jan. 24 to 26, as well as Dear Laila by Palestinian playwright Basel Zaraa, which explores the struggle of the playwright’s family as Palestinians exiled by Israel.
In a statement, organizers of the PuSh Festival said they have heard from people who believe The Runner perpetuates the oppression of Palestinians, and from those who see it as an empathetic perspective.
The playwright has said the play is about a man who “confronts his community’s fear and their dehumanization of others.”
In a joint statement with the festival and Morris, Zaraa said he couldn’t agree with showing Dear Laila alongside The Runner while Israel’s bombardment of Gaza continues, calling the production “a play which reinforces dehumanizing narratives about Palestinians.”
“Palestinians appear in The Runner almost exclusively as perpetrators of violence. While the Israeli characters are vividly portrayed, the Palestinian characters don’t even have names, and barely speak. The fundamental context of Israel’s occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people is not given,” Zaraa said.
Zaraa said he created Dear Laila for his young daughter, to tell his family’s story, starting with a 1948 massacre in their village, Tantura.
Festival organizers said they chose to respect the wishes of Zaraa, whose work reflects lived experience, and cancel The Runner, which is based on years of research by Morris, who has no religious or cultural ties to the region.
“We believe it is a necessary choice to prioritize the work of an artist whose work is grossly underrepresented in Canadian theatre and performance culture,” organizers said. “We believe that in the context of a daily bombardment of Gaza by the state of Israel that has, as of January 9, killed over 23,000 Palestinians — a majority women and children — and displaced 85% of Gaza’s two million residents, this is the right choice to make.”
The statement recognized the “immense and real suffering” of the roughly 1,450 Israeli families whose loved ones were massacred and kidnapped in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.
Morris said it’s “unsettling” when Canadian theatres cannot be a space for the public to engage in an exchange of ideas, but he sympathized with the PuSh Festival’s distress when Zaraa said he would withdraw his production if The Runner remained. “For me, The Runner is a nuanced play about the need to see the humanity of others,” he said.
Morris called Dear Laila an “extraordinary, important work,” and said if removing The Runner is the only way audiences will see Zaraa’s work, “then there is value in stepping aside.”
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