A Knock on the Roof: This skirts the issue of the war in Gaza

Telegraph

27-02-2025

The Royal Court is caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to Gaza, which has of course dominated the news since the massacre of October 7 2023, with the BBC's recent compromised documentary and a grotesque AI video envisaging a gawdy Trumpian make-over of the Strip the latest rounds in the info war.
To avoid the subject looks like a failure to engage with the issues and bear witness to suffering on both sides – but it's such a minefield that it's eminently possible to satisfy no one, add nothing and stir anger. New artistic director David Byrne inherited a financially shaken institution and one reeling from accusations of anti-Semitism, following the outcry over the perceived (if excised) bias in Rare Earth Mettle (2021). His counter-intuitive move was to programme a surprise hit about the furore around Roald Dahl's anti-Israeli/Jewish prejudice, Giant. Still, I can't imagine he'd be rushing to restage Caryl Churchill's controversial short play Seven Jewish Children (2009) – in which Jewish adults reflect on what to tell their children about Israeli actions and forge a shared narrative line.
Due caution aside, A Knock on the Roof, written and performed by Khawla Ibraheem – who's based in the Golan Heights – represents an odd half-way house. One can lay aside the demand that the theatre should be fully addressing October 7, and the hostage crisis. Even so, this particular focus on the Palestinian perspective – seen at the Traverse theatre last summer – seems too narrow by half.
The title alludes to the IDF practice of firing bomblets on buildings to warn of an impending strike, in theory allowing for evacuation. It's a tactic much used in the current war, but Ibraheem's script dispenses with directly contemporary references; there's no mention of October 7, or Hamas. Markedly depoliticised, the emphasis is on the personal: a young mother called Mariam repeatedly frets about how she will escape her flat, with belongings and six-year-old son, should that 'knock' come.
Ibraheem has charm and a stylishly dressed presence that enlists your sympathy in the descriptions of a daily life that morphs from logistical challenges (an absent partner, erratic electricity supplies) to full-blown mental crisis. Limber moves and running on the spot denote the adrenal, obsessive dread and the obstacle course to clear the area in time, what's rehearsal and what's real blurring as she describes reaching safe havens that are themselves blasted.
Smartly directed by Oliver Butler, in its localised, confined way, it's engaging and informative. Still, we've had so many reports on death, displacement, food insecurity and warzone horror that the monologue feels like a side-glance at reality in Gaza rather than an urgent dispatch from it. The project has been in development since 2014, which perhaps explains its finesse and its neatness but also its curious sense of abstraction and removal.
What are people saying around Mariam, what news coverage does she glean, where is her anger directed? I can't help feeling that the piece would be better suited to the Upstairs space – and conversely, the terrific futuristic drama there (More Life), would fill the main-stage better.