AL-HARAH Theatre is making York theatre history this week as the first Palestinian company to play the Theatre Royal.
Director Sami Metwasi's cast must have been delighted to see a full house in the Studio on Tuesday, and so must the Theatre Royal's artistic director, Damian Cruden, and Leeds company Red Ladder Theatre, who were jointly instrumental in bringing Al-Harah to Yorkshire.
Theatres should stretch their hands across all waters to embrace different cultures, but on this occasion the gesture is of greater impact than the play itself.
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Born In Bethlehem takes the form of a guided tour to modern-day Bethlehem by tour guide George (Nicola Zrieneh) and his errant actors Riham (Riham Isshac) and Mohammad (Fuad Hinieh), who have a tendency to wander off the script of re-enacting the first Christmas, whenever he is out of sight.
If he struggles to control them, then the audience has a struggle on its hands too, trying to make sense of a sometimes incomprehensible plot despite the dialogue being in English.
In essence, Al-Harah is making comparisons between Mary and Joseph's flight to Egypt with the baby Jesus to escape Herod's cull and the status of Palestinians 2,000 years later as "real people living very real lives" in a town divided by walls and watchtowers, checkpoints and curfews.
Born In Bethlehem is emotionally spirited, but theatrically simplistic, its humour forced or lost in translation, its meaning frustratingly elusive rather than profound.
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