Review: A KNOCK ON THE ROOF, Royal Court
Photo credit: Alex Brenner
In their attacks on Gaza, the Israeli Defence Force has become known for issuing a kind of warning shot, a muted bomb that rattles the roof of a building and alerts the residents within that they have five minutes before the real rocket arrives and razes their entire lives to the ground. This is the ‘knock on the roof’.
This hollow mercy gives its name to writer and performer Khawla Ibraheem’s new play, currently playing at the Royal Court after an acclaimed Off-Broadway run. A Knock On The Roof is a tight, 75-minute one-woman show depicting the obsessive preparation and practice evacuations of a Palestinian woman waiting for the bomb to drop.
Ibraheem’s performance has the rhythms of a stand-up comedy routine, and peppers this starkly harrowing concept with surprising and refreshing levity. Focusing on the tangible practicalities of life in war time, Ibraheem makes the unfathomable mundane. There are unspoken parallels drawn between the regular restrictions of wartime living with the seasonal ritual of Ramadan – the devastating implication being that war is a fundamental part of Gaza’s culture.
Under Oliver Butler’s direction, Ibraheem delivers this monologue with the precision and power of a rocket. She is an engaging and meticulous performer, never misplacing a beat, but also shows remarkable ease and confidence in drawing the audience into the show, improvising with wry humour around their answers to her question ‘what would you take with you?’
It’s easy to dehumanise those living in war-zones. To picture them shrouded in mystery and misery, and assume an innate practicality and acerbic approach to life, without considering that maybe someone imminently threatened with the loss of their home might want to keep their skincare items and an impractical new vase.
The entire production design around Ibraheem’s towering performance is tight and efficient, like a go-bag itself. Rami Nakhleh’s music and sound design underscores the action sequences with anxious urgency, and together with Oona Curley’s lighting and Hana S Kim’s projection design creates an eloquent shorthand for a ruined city and a haze of panic and doom.
A Knock On The Roof is the most humanising depiction of war-time we have ever seen. Thrilling to the last, a heart-pounding survival story and an inventory of what matters most.
***** Five stars
Reviewed by: Livvy Perrett
A Knock on the Roof plays at London’s Royal Court until 8 March, with further info here.
