The Story of the Death of Najib Brax
November-December 2005
Former General Security Building, Beirut
This site-responsive play, written by Hisham Jaber, was created with a multinational company of 22 artists from Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria, trained by Grid Iron’s eight-strong team in the creation of location theatre. It was presented in the powerful and frighteningly evocative former General Security Building on Spears Street in Hamra, Beirut.
The show was directed by Hisham Jaber and Ben Harrison and told the story of the probable murder of the mysterious figure of Najib Brax from various viewpoints. The lower floor was transformed into a strange dreamworld populated by perverted murderous dwarfs and broken-spirited tour guides. The upper level was a pure installation, with no actors, in which various new pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of the death were revealed.
The play used some of the same spaces transformed by Those Eyes That Mouth but took the building in a completely different direction, finding new resonances and connecting with the recent political history of the region.