How Nancy Wished that Everything Was an April Fool’s Joke
Rabih Mroué

During the long civil war in Lebanon, the walls of Beirut were normally covered with posters showing the martyrs killed during the warfare. In the postwar period, the propaganda gradually became less visible, but after the Israeli attack on the city in the summer of 2006, the portraits of warriors and political leaders who had been killed began, once again, to reappear with renewed intensity, staring at the passers-by as if they refused to leave their place in the everyday life of the city.

How Nancy wished that everything was an April Fool’s joke by the Lebanese playwright, stage director and actor Rabih Mroué deals with the turbulent theme of the memory and official history of the civil war in Lebanon. In Beirut, the kingdoms of the living and dead tend to merge together. Bashir Gemayel, Kamal Jumblatt, Rafik Hariri, Imam al Sadr and all the other assassinated heroes did not die, because each community keeps them alive. Is there any way in which the Beirutis can be induced to leave their dead to rest in peace, far from the city’s walls and squares?