Zaffé REVIEW 8 Oct 2023 ***

 THEATRE

Conceived & directed by Stéphanie Ghajar

Melbourne Fringe Festival

At The Tower, Malthouse, until 15 Oct 2023

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: *** (3)

This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 14 Oct 2023. KH

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Zaffé is a delightfully chaotic celebration of love and joy, as well as the loss and grief experienced by the show’s creators who are all artists part of the Middle Eastern diaspora in Australia.

 

Conceived and directed by Stéphanie Ghajar, Zaffé invites the audience to participate as guests in what appears to be a wedding celebration that takes place is an abandoned building in Beirut, but the wedding table remains unoccupied throughout – an ominous detail.

 

During this immersive theatre work, the audience is seated at tables decorated with flowers and place cards bearing secret messages, visited by cast members for a one-on-one chat, served with pomegranate and soda beverages and entertained with traditional and modern music by the musicians and singers.

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As the 80-minute show progresses, we meet other performers from the Middle East via long-distance video calls, one of whom teaches us to make tabouli and the other who demands we all stand up while he teaches us to belly dance. The party has now started in earnest; there is dancing, games and stories ,both joyful and tragic, about life in war torn countries and life lived in this new country without loved ones who remain in those countries.

 

Zaffé is an experience like those much earlier Community Theatre performances that celebrated immigrant communities; I’m thinking of Emma: A Celebrazione, everything created by Brunswick Women’s Theatre, and multi-lingual company, Sidetrack, in Sydney in the ‘80s. And for immersive, participatory theatre, you can’t go past Jack Hibberd’s Dimboola that did it decades ago.

 

The intimacy and authenticity of these performers telling their personal stories and the joyous dancing, ululation and partying makes Zaffé a special and memorable event.

 

by Kate Herbert

 

Conceived and directed by Stéphanie Ghajar
Produced by Lara Week and Stéphanie Ghajar
Created by Taj Aldeeb, Jean Bachoura, Rawya El Chab, Camille El Feghali, Stéphanie Ghajar, Ayman Kaake, Julia Landberg, Hadi Moussally, Meena Shamaly, Mia Shouha, and Lara Week
Scenic design by Ayman Kaake and Lara Week
Lighting design by Giovanna Yate Gonzalez
Stage managed by Julia Landberg