*7.1. Shakespeare, Interrupted: Cognitive "Therapy"*

Due to a crisis setting of this performance alone, convincingly, the performance argues for the benefits of tactful appropriation of theatrical drama and selective use of tragic elements. In this specific sense, this adaptation might be grouped in concert with other unconventional performances of Shakespeare's well-loved tragedy about two "star-crossed lovers". Consider as another illustrative example how a Romany theatre troupe from Macedonia staged a political statement, as Anthony Dawson frames it: "Their *Romeo* was set in Bosnia, Juliet a Muslim and Romeo a Christian; the bombed-out ancient bridge at Mostar was used as a twisted balcony for Juliet, who spoke to Romeo

<sup>57</sup> For an Amman-based observer account from a participant-observer, see (Pitchford 2019, pp. 140–43).

<sup>58</sup> For a comparative theological model that accounts for a "third position", see (Stosch 2012).

<sup>59</sup> For "developmental logics", see (Escobar 1995, 2008).

<sup>60</sup> The theatrical project is self-funded. For a public appeal, see the crowdfunding campaign: https://www.kickstarer.com/ projects/331042491/syrian-children-play-romeo-and-juliet-separated-by. Hazami Barmada, a communications strategist, authored the letter.

over the gorge".<sup>61</sup> In this case, the religious identities of the actors are downplayed and yet the physical separation that exists in the two hundred miles between Amman and Homs is both emphasized and mediated.

If the purpose of this performance as a kind of drama therapy is for the children to inhabit as actors—albeit fleetingly and periodically—a different world, this involves learning different or new dispositions. In this regard, Peter Brook may provide an insight that differentiates theatrical action from ritual action. While ritual might involve actions that are programmatic and defined, "exercises" are radically different insofar as those actions "mean that as a beginner you do an exercise to learn". For example, taking "dance exercises" in a monastery, he suggest still, "doing those in the way they have learned, at that moment, present an open illustration, for anyone who wants to look at it, of what it means to be in touch with another level".<sup>62</sup>

In the case of Syria, Shakespeare's *Romeo and Juliet* seems to become so useful not just to illuminate the dark recesses of the political reality that this conflict imposes, but also primarily in order to highlight the love that survives despite it all. With the war and separation so present, this adaptation de-escalates the violence that permeates the original text in favor of focusing upon the insurmountable love between Romeo and Juliet. For those familiar with the text, it should be noted that this performance takes great effort not to remove violence from the plot, but rather to push it toward the margins. Noticeably, for instance, Romeo does not kill Tybalt, but disarms him. The skirmish in the public square of Verona that opens the dramatic tensions between the feuding Capulets and Montagues, in the original version, remains off-stage. Rather, as opposed to the mistaken signals that precipitate how the action unfolds in the original texts, the resilience of love is on full display as Juliet and Romeo declare loudly their desire to live.

## *7.2. A Resurrection Appearance: Moral "Therapy"*

How can the example of Frans van der Lugt, a corpus of a different kind, be adduced in a role suitable to the way his martyrdom resonates with Syrian identity and may reconfigure Muslim-Christian dialogue? Although there is ample room for discussion, it should be based on the premise that there might be more truth between Christian and Muslim perspectives regarding his legacy than in Christian reflections alone. The appearance of "Father Frans", in a sense, invites a consideration of how his memory itself becomes a virtual space of healing for Muslims and Christians.

It is forgivable to find his character somewhat puzzling. Notably, consider how even his fellow Jesuit Jad Chabli, while delivering his eulogy at the funeral mass, commemorated his friend by way of critical questioning: "Why did you stay in Homs when you could have left, working with Jesuit companions who spend their days and a good part of their nights busy with refugees, to give them food? Why did you stay when you knew that you could save your very precious life that was always in service to the Syrian people whom you aided all the time?"<sup>63</sup>

For Catholics, according to theological ethicist Stephen Pope, Frans van der Lugt in his concrete actions teaches "inclusive character of Christian mercy", and specifically "a giving of oneself in a way that helps others appreciate their own dignity".<sup>64</sup> Thus, he models a service ethic of compassion. Similarly, from a Catholic perspective, Hans Schaeffer recognizes in his "steadfast conviction" to remain in Homs a commitment that stems from "an agapeic love rooted in a relation with God, who is

<sup>61</sup> (Dawson 2002, p. 186).

<sup>62</sup> (Brook 1979, pp. 58–59).

<sup>63</sup> The translation is my own: "Nous pouvons poser la même question à Frans: pourqoui es-tu resté à Homs quand tu pouvais en sortir, travailler avec tes compagnons jésuites qui passent leur journées et une bonne partie de leurs nuites à s'occuper des réfugiés, à leur donner à manger? Pourquoi es-tu resté quand tu sauvais que tu pouvais sauver ta vie très précieuse parce qu'elle a toujours été au service de peuple syrien que tu as aide tant de fois?"

<sup>64</sup> (Pope 2015, p. 142).

love". Such merciful actions, he proposes, "may function as a sign of hope in a world full of misery and evil".<sup>65</sup>

For others, for all of his simplicity, his example might illuminate a service ethics of hospitality. Even for those some of those closest to him, van der Lugt represented a walking paradox. Tony Homsy, for example, was once one of those Syrian youths who participated in the "hikes" with van der Lugt. Having become a Jesuit, he was studying in the United States when he learned of his elder confrere's death. Recollecting the jokes about van der Lugt, he highlighted specifically his meditations, and how they were Zen, not Ignatian. "But he was faithful, I see it now", confesses Homsy. "He was passionate about life, love and not fearing death. Full of joy. I see Christ clearly in him now. In deed more than in words".<sup>66</sup>

Listening to these Syrian voices in their affirmation of love and life, furthermore, may underscore this point. Revised as such, Juliet cannot accept the narrator's account that it is Father Frans who suggests the scheme with the sleeping potion. It is noteworthy that no character is so maligned in *Romeo and Juliet* by reviewers and critics as Friar Laurence. Many take him to be either a pitiful victim of the plot or a naïve interloper whose attempt to help the two lovers actually determines their eventual demise. Unless one were not capable of a more generous spirit toward this character, his opening soliloquy may even inspire with his praise of the earth "and from her womb children of diver kind". Moreover, for the audience, he lays forth how the theatrical action that unfolds should be observed with humility, judicious vigilance, and also magnanimity and judicious: "Many for many virtues excellent, None but for some, and yet all different" (2.iii.10–14). The friar's own "bid" to redirect the impulses of the two protagonists and so to channel the play's passions, in the end, succumbs to the overwhelming pace and intensity of the action that unfolds. "By the play's end, of course", Michael Goldman critiques, "Lawrence's intervention has proved an example misapplied".<sup>67</sup> As familiar as we may be with the original, however, this case does not represent the same character. Those scenes in the original do happen in this adaptation. Revising Friar Laurence's character and recasting him into the mold of "Father Frans" seems to irreversibly alter how the action unfolds.

From a Catholic point-of-view, Peter Brook's appreciation for the manifest presence of an "incarnational" moment speaks to the possibility of a deep truth this performance creates. Just as Imam Husayn emerges between the performers and audiences in *ta'ziyeh*, a communion happens that is difficult to distinguish. "Nobody could draw the line between different orders of reality", Brook remembers, "It was an incarnation at that particular moment he was being martyred again in front of those villagers". In this case, possibly in kind, the performers and the audiences of this event may have registered this intensification of affect with the appearance of "Father Frans", only one year removed from the death of Frans van der Lugt may have experienced a similar presence. The basic appeal to this figure can pose a range of questions about the influence and power of such a reference that Brook's observation may not exhaust.

Resurrecting "Father Frans" in this way, however, might also present us with something of a paradox. For those in Amman, watching the Homs video feed, the body of the young masked actor evoked anew the presence of "Father Frans". If the performance creates a kind of presence, at the same time, it also enacts an absence. As he comments on the *ta'ziyeh* phenomenon, Talal Asad offers a different chord that may pertain to this case, remarking: "that who or what is represented in both absent and present at the same time (re-presented)".<sup>68</sup> As a remembrance of the dead, how may the inclusion of Father Frans contribute a fuller awareness of the political and religious reality that these performers and their audiences must confront?

<sup>65</sup> (Schaeffer 2018, p. 1).

<sup>66</sup> See (Gilger 2014) and for his own reflections see (Homsy 2015).

<sup>67</sup> See (Goldman 1972, pp. 33–44). This paragraph is clearly indebted to some of Goldman's insights.

<sup>68</sup> (Asad 2003, p. 75).

Nevertheless, when re-reading the original text in light of the adaptation, light is also shed on the original. How altered, for instance, is the sense of poor Capulet's regard for his beloved daughter Juliet as a "stranger in the world" and "the hopeful lady of my earth", an "Earth that has swallowed all my hopes but she" (2.ii.8, 14–5). So too, we might be forgiven for interpreting differently the moment when Juliet characterizes the friar in the form of "Father Frans" as her "ghostly confessor" (2.vi.21), or when the priest himself explains his own efforts to console the boy Romeo's anxieties about "banishment" as a "dear mercy" (3.iii.28). With other readers, we should feel invited to role-play these scenes, while bearing in mind the complexities and the novelty that this case poses to our self-understandings.
