Rebekah has directed theatre productions at the American Repertory Theatre, the Huntington Theatre, PEN America World Voices Festival, Golden Thread Theatre, Harvard, Cornell, Vanderbilt, and Rose Bruford College, among others. She has also coached actors on Broadway, in regional theatres, and film, and television.
By Mamduh Adwan
Translated by Margaret Litvin
Adapted and Directed by Rebekah Maggor
Music by Kinan Abou-afach
Cornell University
In this biting political satire of Shakespeare's tragedy by renowned Syrian poet and playwright Mamduh Adwan, Hamlet is a narcissistic prince, blissfully unaware of his people's bleak reality. Distracted by drink and artistic pretentions, Hamlet fails to notice the rise of a brutal plutocratic dictatorship. The production, adapted and directed by Rebekah Maggor, brings together text, original music, and movement to explore past and present events in Syria, while at the same time pushing the boundaries of our contemporary political conversation in the U.S.
By Rama Haydar
Translated by Rama Haydar and Rebekah Maggor
Adapted and Directed by Rebekah Maggor
PEN America World Voice Festival at the Nuyorican Poets Café and Cornell University
Set outside Damascus in the Yarmouk refugee camp, Desert of Light reveals the tragic absurdity of the Syrian civil war. As a brutal siege rages outside, two Palestinian-Syrian refugees in their mid-twenties, Guy A and Guy B, debate the best plan of escape and eventually come to blows over the meaning of love, resistance, and exile. With surprising humor and devastating honesty, Desert of Light offers an intimate and boldly critical perspective on the ongoing refugee crisis in the Middle East.
By Bashar Murkus
Translated by Rebekah Maggor
Directed by Rebekah Maggor
PEN America World Voice Festival at the Nuyorican Poets Café
Parallel Time evokes the daily struggle of life behind bars for a group of Palestinian political prisoners in an Israeli jail and their collective fight to overcome the despair of long-term incarceration. On the eve of his twentieth year in prison, Wadiye— who is serving a life-sentence for an act of terrorism he maintains he did not commit—fights for and receives permission to marry. In preparation for the marriage, Wadiye and his cellmates hatch a secret plan to build an oud to play music at the wedding celebration.
Translator’s Note:
Bashar Murkus wrote the original Arabic text of Parallel Time in the Palestinian Arabic vernacular particular to political prisoners. He researched and integrated their distinct vocabulary, expressions, syntax and pronunciation into the dialogue. In my translation, I have attempted to capture the poetry, immediacy, and political nature of this dialect. Part of my translation process involved researching prison parlance in the United States, specifically in the Auburn Maximum Security Correctional Facility in New York State. I am indebted to the writer/performers of the Phoenix Players Theatre Group in the Cornell Prison Education Program for making time to read and workshop drafts of the translation and offering invaluable insights into the language of incarceration. It is my hope that this translation tells the specific story of these Palestinian characters, while simultaneously connecting their experiences to what the character Wadiye calls, “an age of incarceration long from over.”
And Other Plays from Egypt
By Magdy El-Hamzawy, Yasmeen Emam (Shaghaf), Hani Abdel Nasser, and Mohamed Abdel Mu’iz
Translated by Rebekah Maggor, Amor Eletrebi, Mona Ragab, and Mohammed Albakry
Adapted and Directed by Rebekah Maggor
Original Music by Kinan Abou-afach
Choreography by Melanie Stewart
Rowan University
The three short plays in this production were written in Egypt during a time of social unrest and political instability. They tell stories of characters yearning for lives of dignity in the face of poverty, corruption, and discrimination. In the surreal drama The Mirror, by Yasmeen Emam (Shaghaf), a teenage girl is paralyzed by the question of whether to wear a revealing or conservative dress to the wedding of a man she dreamed of marrying. In the gritty monodrama They Say Dancing is a Sin, by Hani Abdel Nasser and Mohamed Abdel Mu’iz, an independently minded dancer derides the duplicity and greed of her well-to-do patrons. The satirical ensemble tragedy Report on Revolutionary Circumstances by Magdy El Hamzawy, introduces a plucky shoeshine boy who dreams that the revolution will send him back to school.
Woven together, these plays provide a unique perspective on the unfolding drama of the “Arab Spring” – the revolutionary wave of popular uprising that swept through the Middle East in 2011. They offer intimate stories of individuals caught up in the storm and stress of political change. In these plays, the mass protests that led to the ousting of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, the growing power of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the influence of the military in civilian life are viewed from the grassroots perspective of ordinary Egyptians, whose hopes for greater democracy and equality are repeatedly shattered.
Dancing is a Sin: Two New One-Women Plays from Egypt
By Yasmeen Emam (Shaghaf), Hani Abdel Nasser, and Mohamed Abdel Mu’iz
Translated by Rebekah Maggor, Mona Ragab, and Mohammed Albakry
Adapted and Directed by Rebekah Maggor
Huntington Theatre Company
Full of humor, passion, and crushing candor, these two short Egyptian plays tell stories of women yearning for lives of dignity in the face of poverty, corruption, and discrimination. In the surreal one-woman show The Mirror by Yasmeen Emam (Shaghaf), a teenage girl is paralyzed by the question of whether to wear a revealing or conservative dress to the wedding of a man she dreamed of marrying. In the gritty monologue They Say Dancing is a Sin by Hany Abdel Nasser and Mohamed Abdel Mu’iz, an independently-minded belly dancer derides the duplicity and greed of her well-to-do patrons.
