Birds of a Kind - Softcover

Mouawad, Wajdi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1770919902 ISBN 13: 9781770919907

Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press, 2019

Synopsis

Is it really important to cling to our lost identities? A terrorist attack in Jerusalem puts Eitan, a young Israeli-German genetic researcher, in a coma, while his girlfriend Wahida, an Moroccan graduate student, is left to uncover his family secret that brought them to Israel in the first place. Since Eitan's parents erupted at a Passover meal when they realized Wahida was not Jewish, he has harbored a suspicion about his heritage that, if true, could change everything.

About this title

About the Author

Over the past twenty years Wajdi Mouawad has established himself, both in Canada and in Europe, as a uniquely original player on the contemporary theatre scene, acclaimed for his direct and uncompromising narratives and his spare and compelling theatre aesthetic. In all his work, from his own plays (over fifteen to date, including Tideline, Scorched, Forests and Heavens and adaptations (including Ce´line’s Journey to the End of the Night and Cervantes’ Don Quixote), the productions he has directed (including Macbeth, The Trojan Women and Three Sisters), to novels (Visage Retrouve´, Anima) Wajdi Mouawad expresses the conviction that “art bears witness to human existence through the prism of beauty.” Wajdi Mouawad’s plays have been translated in more than twenty languages and presented in all parts of the world, including Great-Britain and Germany.

Linda Gaboriau is a Montreal-based dramaturge and literary translator. She has worked as a freelance journalist for the CBC as well as the Montreal Gazette, and worked in Canadian and Quebecois theatre. Gaboriau has won awards for her translations of more than 100 plays and novels by Quebec writers, including many of the Quebec plays best known to English Canadian audiences. She is the founding director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

2. The first night after the massacre

A hospital room. A nurse enters.

Nurse. Sorry. Visiting hours are over. You have to leave now. Until seven tomorrow morning.

Wahida. I’m sorry, I don’t speak Hebrew.

Nurse. It’s eight o’clock. You have to leave now. Until seven tomorrow morning.

Wahida. Will you call me if he wakes up in the night?

Nurse. Do we know where to reach you?

Wahida. I lost my phone. You can reach me on Eitan’s phone or at the Paradise Hotel. Lions’ Gate.

Nurse. You should move closer to the hospital. The army might close off the Muslim Quarter.

Wahida. Can I stay here?

Nurse. It’s not allowed.

Wahida. Just tonight.

Nurse. I’m sorry. The entire floor is occupied by victims of the attack. Many of them will die tonight. The first night after an attack separates the living from the dead. You couldn’t handle it. No one can. So we limit the number of people present. Otherwise, we’d fall apart, too. The days ahead are going to be difficult. You have to get some rest. You have to sleep.

Wahida. I can’t sleep. I replay the scene in my head as soon as I’m alone. I close my eyes and it all comes back, the bridge, the people, the heat, the sun, customs, the body search, an endless loop of images until the explosion.

Nurse. Were you together?

Wahida. They had separated us. That’s what saved me and probably saved him too. If they hadn’t decided to search me, both of us probably would have died on that bus to Jordan. But when the truck attacked, I was still being interrogated. Eitan had told me, I’ll wait for you, and we were separated. I didn’t see it happen. I was with a woman soldier who was body-searching me when the explosion took place. A horrendous vomiting followed by the smell of burnt flesh. I had never seen so many dead bodies.

Nurse. Are you alone in Israel?

Wahida. Yes.

Nurse. Where does his family live?

Wahida. Berlin.

Nurse. Have theybeen notified?

Wahida. I’m not the right person to contact them.

Nurse. They have to be notified. Where are you from?

Wahida. New York.

Nurse. Contact his parents. That’s the first thing to do. You can’t face this alone. What’s your name?

Wahida. Wahida.

Eitan. Wahida?

Nurse. My name is Sigal. Here.

She hands wahida a tablet.

This will help you sleep. If Eitan wakes up, I’ll call you. I promise.

The nurse exits.

Edition details

• Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1770919902
• ISBN 13: 9781770919907
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 96