”Ehna meen?” Zarqa youth loudly asked on stage

The MS ActionAid supported theatre play ”Ehna Meen?” stirred feelings and thoughts and provoked reflection among the spectators.

"Tiieecket, ticket ticket ticket', 17 year old amateur comedian Majd Ibrahim yells on stage.

People laughed, cried and cheered when the play ”Ehna Meen” (”Who am I?”), was shown in the Royal Cultural Centre in Amman.

A group of young people born in Zarqa and still living there were telling their own personal stories on stage through storytelling, theatre, dance performance and break dance.

- The play made me cry and made me think about my baby and on the way, I sometimes treat him. If I am tired and he wants to talk to me, I have a tendency to snap at him. From now on, I want to try to listen to him more than I usually do…, Muna at 35 from Zarqa said after having experienced the play.

A song for fathers

One of the many stories in the play was about a son and his father and their relationship.

The son wants to have more freedom in his everyday life, but his father does not allow it and always acts angry and aggressive towards him. The son has developed so much fear of his father that he hardly dares to sleep at night. He fears that the father will enter his room and punish him with a stick. For that reason he always sleeps with the lights on.

One night the boy dreams that his dad is killing him while he is sleeping, and he wakes up shaking and does not dare to go back to sleep.

"Ana, ana ana ana, ana..." a heartbreaking yell knifes the silence in the Royal Cultural Centre in Amman.

In the morning he tries to speak with his dad, but he rejects him and say: ”Go away, bad boy! I do not want to hear anything from you!” The son tries to talk to his father several times, but the father refuses to listen to him. And in the play, the son therefore chooses to sing a song to his father.

”Give me your love, my dad. I need you. I understand that you think that I am a bad boy. But I just need you to be beside me. Please take my hand and support me. If you love me, you have to let me do what I want to do.”

Everyone’s thoughts played out loud

The idea behind the father-son story is to discuss the relationship between sons and fathers in society and it is just one example out of many from the play. Just like the father-son story, all the other stories in the play address a variety of youth issues in society.

- It is such great work and the stories are presenting real life very well. The play really expresses our life in this country, and a lot of young people suffer from the issues the play is bringing into debate, 22 years old Mohammed Hindi from Zarqa said.

- The play really affected me inside. I remember many situations from my friends’ lives. And I do recognize aspects in the play from my own life. I just don’t like to remember and talk about bad things in my life. I don’t forget the things but I prefer to keep the memories to myself. My mum and dad are both really good people. They have given me all I wanted, Mohammed Hindi said.

Youth voices heard

The young actors have created the main contents in the play on their own, but have been closely supervised by, Nael Abu-Ayyash, one of several professional actors, storytellers and playwrights from both Denmark and Jordan.

Throughout July Nael has been facilitating training workshops on personal storytelling and it has resulted in highlighting a great variety of interesting and different stories about the participants and their lives in Zarqa.

Judging by the reactions from the audience, the play stirred thoughts and feelings that everyone could relate to, either partly or wholeheartedly. This way youth voices were heard through the alternative medium of storytelling and theatre.