Zeina Daccache brings together comedy and tragedy of ‘trapped’ Lebanese in new play

Now playing in Beirut, Li Chabakna Ykhalessna also features ex-convict Joseph Jules and comedian Sam Ghazal in starring roles

Actress and director Zeina Deccache in Li Chabakna Ykhalessna, which she describes as 'a very sarcastic play'. Photo: Jo Khoury

For over a decade, Lebanese actress, director and drama therapist Zeina Daccache has been using theatre to shine a light on the systemic failures and injustices of the Lebanese judicial system. Through her non-profit, Catharsis-Lebanese Centre for Drama Therapy, she's been using acting workshops to help rehabilitate prisoners, raise awareness of their situations and advocate for much-needed legal reforms.

“I never really intended to get involved with things like that,” Daccache tells The National. “When I started, I said we would go in to do drama therapy, and this might lead to a theatre play. I asked what the inmates wanted to say in their play – this is the way I do it; it's their voice – and they came up with the penal code and the parole system. So, I looked into it.”

Daccache's two previous documentaries, 12 Angry Lebanese (2009), shot in Roumieh prison, and Scheherazade’s Diary (2013), in the Baabda female prison, won several international awards each and inspired changes to the Lebanese penal code. Her 2021 film, The Blue Inmates, which had its world premiere at Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival, centred on inmates inside Roumieh – Lebanon’s largest and most infamous prison – who produce a theatre play about their fellow inmates who've been diagnosed with mental illness.

With her latest play, Li Chabakna Ykhalessna, launched earlier this month, Daccache has partnered with ex-prisoner, close collaborator and friend Joseph Jules to address a different issue; one that is much closer to home. With Lebanon still caught in the grip of a severe economic crisis and reeling from the recent fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, along with decades of political quagmire and other disasters, both find themselves reflecting on their own time imprisoned – whether voluntarily or otherwise.

The title, which roughly translates to “he who trapped us can set us free”, is a refrain from Egyptian singer Abdel Halim Hafez's hugely popular song Gana El Hawa, released in 1969.

Now aged 57, Jules became a militia fighter at just 14 years old during the Lebanese Civil War. Following the end of the conflict, he was imprisoned in 1991, his crime earning him a life sentence. By the time he met Daccache for the first time, in 2006, he had been imprisoned in Roumieh for 15 years. Today, he has been free for three years, a beneficiary of the same parole reforms that he and Daccache advocated for.

“For 13 years, Joseph and I worked together on every project,” Daccache explains. “For every single theatre play and all the drama therapy sessions I was implementing, he was there to participate. Naturally, I try to stay in contact with people I've worked with for so long. We were grabbing a coffee, talking about life, and I suggested we write a play about both of our situations after prison.”

“It's a very sarcastic play,” she continues. “We talk about Lebanon, the economic crisis, the Beirut Blast, and being trapped in a state of no closure. We had no government for the past four years. It's a reflection on life in general, and then we go into personal things that happened to us.

“Drama therapy is a tool I've always used. Now, I've applied it to myself. It's your life, but it's not autobiographical theatre; you are revealing parts of your life for the sake of your own therapy, and the therapy of the audience.”

Hosted at Le Monnot Theatre, in Beirut’s affluent Achrafieh neighbourhood, Daccache and Jules blend tragedy and comedy, embracing both sarcasm and gallows humour as they pass through themes of grief, friendship, parenting, family crises and finding peace, despite the uncertainty of the future. Through their personal stories, their characters find meaning in a chaotic world, and ultimately reaching a place of hope and optimism.

Daccache and Jules are also joined on stage by stand-up comedian Sam Ghazal. Born in 2000, he was sought out by Daccache and Jules as an antidote to their own pessimistic, world-weary perspectives. Within the framework of Li Chabakna Ykhalessna, Ghazal's unburdened, youthful presence is an invitation for both the cast and the audience to let go, and look at things with fresh eyes.

“Sam Gazel is beautiful,” says Daccache. “When I was sitting with Joseph, and we were writing and reflecting, we realised that we are so depressing. We needed some new blood. So, after we had a good laugh about that, we asked around about stand-up comedians, and someone guided us to Sam. He knew nothing about prisons or the wars that took place in Lebanon. He was exactly who we needed.

“I've been a clinical psychologist for the past 25 years. If there is no humour in you, looking back at your life and your traumas becomes so difficult, because life is so absurd in the end. Life is like a big play. If you can't see the absurdity of it and smile, it can be overwhelming.”

Li Chabakna Ykhalessna is a harsh but ultimately heartwarming journey of personal healing. Its intimate and quietly powerful performances allow audiences space to explore their own complex feelings in relation to Lebanon’s unfolding situation as the country enters what many Lebanese are calling a potential turning point for the better.

“I don't want anything,” Daccache says of the play. “I'm receiving messages daily, saying thank you for this play and saying that we're not OK in this country. Whatever they take from it, it's good.”

Li Chabakna Ykhalessna is running at Le Monnot Theatre in Beirut on select days until April 7