The Moving Theatre in association with Global Uncertainties presents the world premiere
THE KEEPERS OF INFINITE SPACE
by Omar El-Khairy with contributions from Caroline Rooney.
Directed by Zoe Lafferty. Designed by Philip Lindley. Lighting by Johanna Town. Sound by Richard Hammarton. Costume by Susan Kulkarni. Produced by Chris Foxon.
Featuring Philip Correia, Edmund Kingsley, Cornelius Macarthy, Hilton McRae, Laura Prior, Sirine Saba, Patrick Toomey and John Wark.
The team behind 2012’s international hit The Fear of Breathing return with a hard-hitting examination of the Israeli prison system, one of the central issues in the latest Israel-Palestine peace process, which will run at the Park Theatre from 22 January – 16 February 2014
Since the Israeli occupation in 1967, Palestine has become a nation of prisons. Up to 40% of the male population have been detained under military orders, often without charge or legal representation, with devastating consequences not only practically but psychologically for a country struggling to survive.
With the release of political prisoners and the attendant media manipulation from both sides a key part of the stuttering peace process, The Keepers of Infinite Space explores the Israeli prison system and reveals its fraught legacy for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
Following the true stories of life in the Syrian revolution explored in the hugely successful, international hit The Fear of Breathing, director Zoe Lafferty, Associate Director at The Freedom Theatre Palestine, returns to the UK with a project drawing on the true-life experiences of those at the heart of the prison system.
“You’ve got to learn when to throw your punches – when they least expect it. There’s no use flailing in the dark. This is where battles are raged – and wars won.”
Saeed is a bookseller in Nablus. His father Khalil is a property developer. They’re just an ordinary family, quietly building a new Palestine. Until one day Saeed is arrested and thrown in gaol. As his future disappears, Saeed finds that the answer to his problems may lie in the past, and in the secrets his father has kept from him…
The Keepers of Infinite Space will be live-streamed free of charge around the world as part of The Moving Theatre’s commitment to stimulating debate and discussion through engaging, true-to-life political theatre-making.
SPECIAL OFFER FOR PSC MEMBERS AND SUPPORTERS: tickets for £10 by quoting the code ‘TKOIS’ when booking online or by phone!!
Park Theatre, Clifton Terrace, London, N4 3JP
Box Office 020 7281 8813 Book online at www.parktheatre.co.uk
Wednesday, 22 January – Saturday, 16 February 2014
Tuesday to Saturday Evenings at 7.45pm. Saturday and Sunday Matinees at 3.15pm.
Tickets £19.50, £16 concessions, except Tuesday Evenings £12 for under 25s and N4 residents.
Performance Length: Approximately 90 minutes with no interval.
For more information, interviews and images, please contact
Chris Foxon on email [email protected] or 07720768693
Writer Omar El-Khairy is the Leverhulme Associate Playwright at the Bush Theatre and co-founder of the international theatre and film collective Paper Tiger. He is developing a new play A Soldier Dreams of White Tulips as part of Paper Tiger’s residency as Associate Artists at Ovalhouse, where his first full-length play Sour Lips recently premiered. Theatre includes Return to Sender (Orange Tree Theatre), Given the Times (Finborough Theatre), Polling Booth (Theatre503), Eyelids (Unicorn Theatre), Lovestrong (Lyric Hammersmith), Burst (Zoo Venues, Edinburgh Festival), Longitude (The Public Theatre, New York) and The Arc (Arcola Theatre). His short film No Exit is in production with Idioms Film in the West Bank, Palestine, and he is now developing his first feature length screenplay, Sheikh. Omar holds a PhD in Political Sociology from the LSE.
Director Zoe Lafferty trained at Drama Centre, London and the Vaktangov Theatre School, Moscow. Zoe has worked as a director and playwright in Afghanistan, the US, Palestine and Europe, and travelled in secret through Syria during the uprising to collect material for The Fear of Breathing. She is Associate Director of The Freedom Theatre Palestine and Associate Director and board member of The Red Room Theatre Company. Directing includes The Fear of Breathing (Finborough Theatre; Akasaka Red Theatre, Tokyo), the world premiere of Bola Agbaje’s Concrete Jungle (Riverside Studios), Gaza: Breathing Space (Soho Theatre), Adult Child/Dead Child (Unicorn Theatre and Edinburgh Festival), Alice in Wonderland (Freedom Theatre Palestine) and Sho Khman? (Freedom Theatre Palestine and International Tour). Associate Directing includes Lost Nation (The Red Room). Assistant Directing includes The Dresser (Watford Palace Theatre), Waiting For Godot (Freedom Theatre Palestine and American Tour), Protozoa (The Red Room) and Oikos (The Red Room). Zoe co-wrote Off Record with Paul Wood, a verbatim piece on the Israel/Palestine conflict performed at the Soho Theatre, and has developed work with National Theatre Wales.
Creative Coordinator Caroline Rooney is a Global Uncertainties Leadership Fellow and Professor of African and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Kent. Her research by practice engages with arts activism and popular culture towards coming to terms with a new Middle East in the making. Theatre includes The Rebel Cell at El Sawy Culturewheel in Cairo.
Film includes The Road to Midan Tahrir, featuring interviews she carried out with Egyptian writers in 2010. Caroline’s poetry appears in an anthology of human rights poetry (London Human Rights Consortium, 2013) and she has published widely on the Arab avant-garde and popular culture, liberation struggles and their aftermaths, and alternative enlightenments. With director Mai Masri she is currently working on a documentary film addressing the experiences of Palestinian child prisoners.
Philip Correia trained at LAMDA.
Theatre includes The History Boys (Wyndhams Theatre and National Theatre), Hobson’s Choice and The Syndicate (Chichester Festival Theatre and Minerva Theatre), The Merry Wives of Windsor (RSC), Northern Odyssey (Live Theatre Newcastle), Judgement Day (The Print Room), The Cherry Orchard (Birmingham Rep), Country Music (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Bus Stop (New Vic/SJT), Romeo and Juliet (Jermyn Street Theatre) and What Cheryl Did Next (Theatre 503).
Television includes Inspector George Gently, Casualty, Hollyoaks, Canoe Man, Doctors, The Bill and Lewis.
Radio includes Blue Flu.
Edmund Kingsley trained at RADA.
Theatre includes Richard III, King John, Antony and Cleopatra, The Tempest, Julius Caesar and The Lord of the Flies (RSC), Dangerous Corner and The Importance of Being Earnest (Salisbury Playhouse), The River Line (Jermyn Street Theatre), She Stoops to Conquer (Nottingham Playhouse), Moscow Live (HighTide Festival Theatre), Wuthering Heights (Birmingham Rep), Human Rites and ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (Southwark Playhouse), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Twelfth Night (English Touring Theatre) and The Taming of the Shrew (Thelma Holt).
Television includes Breathless, Endeavour, The Borgias, Doctors, Sensitive Skin, Agatha Christie – A Life in Pictures and As If.
Film includes Eliza Graves, Allies, Hugo, The Reverend, The Duchess of Malfi, Within the Woods and Freddie as FR07.
Radio includes The Christmas Mysteries, Mercian World News and The Bulldog has Landed.
Cornelius Macarthy was born in London and grew up in Sierra Leone. He trained at the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.
He recently completed a European tour playing Bertrand Russell, in a production based on Bertrand’s life and writings in his book of the same name, directed by multi award-winning Bosnian director Haris Pašović.
Other theatre includes Rising Damp (National Tour), Antony & Cleopatra (Chichester Festival Theatre), 1936 (Sadlers Wells), Come Dancing (Theatre Stratford East),12 Proposals for a Better Europe (Belarus Free Theatre/West Yorkshire Playhouse), Peter Pan (York Theatre Royal), To Kill a Mockingbird (National Tour), Welcome to Thebes (National Theatre); The Good Soul of Szechuan (Manchester Library Theatre), Lost in the Stars (Queen
Elizabeth Hall), King Cotton (Manchester Lowry/Liverpool Empire), A Taste of
Honey (York Theatre Royal), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Liverpool Playhouse),
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (West End), Lifting the Mask (National Tour),
Spirit of the Dance (National Tour), Cinderella (Greenwich Theatre), Drive Ride
Walk (Albany Theatre) and Notes Across a Small Pond (Bridewell Theatre).
Television includes A Touch of Frost, Doctors, EastEnders, Collision, Murder Investigation Team, Empathy, My Hero, Torchwood and Kingmakers.
Film includes Teach Me, Candle to Water, Patient 17, Millions and In the Mood.
Cornelius’s world tours with London Community Gospel Choir has led to extensive work as a session singer with a wide variety of recording artists including Blur, Beautiful South, Manu Dibango, Madonna, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Tom Jones, Atomic Kitten, Will Young, Billie Piper, R. Kelly, Boy George, Van Morrison and P Diddy.
Hilton McRae’s theatre credits includeTimon of Athens (National Theatre), The Kreutzer Sonata (Gate Theatre/La MaMa New York), End of the Rainbow (Northampton Theatre Royal), Experimentum Mundi (Edinburgh International Festival), The Oresteia Trilogy (Fisher Centre, New York), Rock ‘n’ Roll (Manchester Library Theatre), The Wizard of Oz (RFH), Weapons of Happiness (Finborough Theatre), Caroline Or Change (National Theatre), Rabbit (West End/Brits off Broadway), Twelfth Night (Tour), The Comedy of Errors (Sheffield Crucible), Hamlet (Northampton Theatre Royal), The Tempest (Southwark Playhouse), Peer Gynt (Arcola Theatre), My One and Only (Chichester Festival Theatre/West End), Mamma Mia (West End), The Front Page (Donmar Warehouse), Othello & A Doll’s House (Birmingham Rep), Les Miserables (West End), Miss Saigon (West End), Hedda Gabler (Manchester Royal Exchange), Macbeth (Dundee Rep), Les Liaisons Dangereuses (RSC/Broadway), The Danton Affair, Troilus and Cressida, As You Like It, Total Eclipse, Piaf, Much Ado About Nothing, The Innocent, Anthony and Cleopatra, Captain Swing, The Churchill Play, The Merchant of Venice, Factory Birds and Bandits (RSC) and LayOff/Yobbo Nowt. (7:84).
Television includes New Tricks IX, Injustice, Zen, Red Riding Trilogy – 1983, The Execution of Gary Glitter, Lewis, Frances Tuesday, Murder City, Silent Witness, Baby Father, Midsomer Murders, Serious & Organised, Monarch of the Glen, Deacon Brodie, The Justice Game, King of Hearts, First Take, Zorro: The Reward, To Each His Own, William Tell, Roll Over Beethoven, Poppyland, The Kit Curran Radio Show, Forever Young, Leaving and Gaskin.
Film includes Far From the Madding Crowd, Serena, Power of Three, Stroke of Genius, Mansfield Park, Return of the Jedi, Secret Rapture, Greystoke andThe French Lieutenant’s Woman.
Laura Prior graduated from Rose Bruford College. Theatre includes Potholes (Theatre 503), The Midnight Princess (Rose Theatre Kingston), Eisteddfod (HighTide Festival Theatre for Latitude Festival), The Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare’s Globe), Epidemic (Old Vic New Voices), Blue Sky/Green Forest (Arcola Theatre), The Witch of Edmonton (Shakespeare’s Globe) and Loyal Women (Greenwich Theatre).
Sirine Saba trained at RADA.
Theatre includes The Fear of Breathing (Finborough Theatre), Scorched (Old Vic Tunnels), Nation and Sparkleshark (National Theatre), Midnight’s Children, Pericles, The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale, Beauty and the Beast, Tales from Ovid, A Warwickshire Testimony and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Royal Shakespeare Company), Testing the Echo (Tricycle Theatre), Rough Cuts: the Spiral and The Rise and Fall of a Lebanese Pop Princess (Royal Court Theatre), Baghdad Wedding (Soho Theatre), The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night (Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park) and Cinderella (Bristol Old Vic).
Television includes Doctors, Silent Witness, Footballers’ Wives, The Bill and Prometheus.
Radio includes Marley is Dead, My Daughter the Racist, From Fact to Fiction, Arabian Afternoon, English in Afghanistan, The Locust and The Bird, Beirut Days, Baghdad Wedding and Love and Loss.
Patrick Toomey trained at LAMDA.
Theatre includes Casualties (Park Theatre), The Father (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry), Lovebirds (Southwark Playhouse), Edward II and Richard II (Shakespeare’s Globe), The School for Scandal (Derby Theatre Royal and Northampton Theatre Royal), Mister Heracles (West Yorkshire Playhouse), The John Wayne Principle (Nuffield Theatre, Southampton), Wild Horses (Theatre 503), On the Waterfront (Hackney Empire),The Recuiting Officer, The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh), The Boys in the Band (Aldwych Theatre),Lady Betty and As You Like It (Cheek by Jowl), Sweet Phoebe (Hen and Chickens), A Small Family Business (Birmingham Rep), The Blue Angel (Gielgud Theatre), The School for Scandal (English Touring Theatre) and The Woman in Black (Fortune Theatre).
Television includes Doc Martin, The Escape Artist, Vera, Law and Order UK, Mutual Friends, Missing, Holby City, The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb, Auf Wiedersehen Pet, Hollyoaks, The Only Boy For Me, Courtroom, The Bill, William and Mary, Monarch of the Glen, Jackson’s Wharf, Water Rats, Heartbeat, Murder Most Horrid, The House of Angelo, Annie’s Bar, Over Here, Cadfael, Young Indiana Jones, Streetwise and The Two of Us.
Film includes The Glass House, Arsene Lupin, Walking with the Enemy and Pressure Point.
Radio includes Soho Nights and The Father.
John Wark trained at RADA.
Theatre includes Dog in the Manger, Tamar’s Revenge and Pedro, the Great Pretender (Royal Shakespeare Company), Tamburlaine (Bristol Old Vic and Barbican Theatre), Nobody Will Ever Forgive Us (National Theatre of Scotland at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh), The Winter Guest (Almeida Theatre), Torch Song Trilogy (Tron Theatre, Glasgow), The Only Girl in the World (Arcola Theatre) and Jamie the Saxt and The Fear of Breathing (Finborough Theatre).
Television includes Robin Hood, Taggart, The Ten Commandments and G-Force.
Film includes A Little Chaos, Breaking the Waves, The Oxford Murders, Late Night Shopping and Within the Woods.
The press on The Fear of Breathing
★★★★★ Five Stars The Public Reviews
★★★★★ Five Stars The Good Review
★★★★ Four Stars The Telegraph
★★★★ Four Stars The Independent
★★★★ Four Stars Metro
★★★★ Four Stars Time Out Critics’ Choice
“It can hardly be bettered…essential viewing.” Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph
“An electrifying, visceral experience.” Time Out
“Genuinely enlightening…a play of extraordinary power.” Paul Taylor, The Independent
“An incredibly powerful piece.” The Stage
“Electric staging, eloquent…harrowing testimony [which] builds to an urgent, confrontational climax.” Claire Allfree, Metro
“Everything works about this play…The most powerful, chilling and thought-provoking piece of theatre on stage now.” The Public Reviews
“Theatre we can’t afford to miss.” The Good Review