Jogging – Theatre in Progress

Alone in a tiny space, Medea stands before us. Or does she? What does she have to tell us? In her native Lebanon, there are no theatres where actor and theatre maker Hanane Hajj Ali would be able to tell this story without restraint. So she uses venues like galleries and coffee-houses as a forum for dialogue and communication on the contradictions of life in Lebanese society. In an intimate atmosphere, her stage character addresses her dreams and passions, her hopes and disappointments, her character and role models with great force and energy. She tells us how she works out daily to avoid osteoporosis, depression and obesity, while executing exercises on stage that allow for a wide range of interpretations. These work-outs have contradictory effects: The dopamine and adrenaline stimulated in her body reflect what the performer witnesses in her home city of Beirut every day: They destroy to reconstruct and reconstruct to destroy. Hanane Hajj Ali plays engagingly with identities, mythology and realistic elements, embodying various aspects of the character of Medea which link her to her own roles of woman, wife and mother: an ensemble of performative disruptions which the artist masters with great virtuosity.