Lincoln Centre Festival performs Syrian play for first time

CAIRO – 19 July 2017: The cast of 'While I was Waiting' will be the first ever Syrians to set foot onto the stage of New York's Lincoln Centre Festival on Wednesday. A triumph in Trump's America after all the hysteria involving the refugee crisis complicated live for Syrian refugees and other Muslim Americans.

The play tells the story of a man named Taim who is hospitalized in a coma after being beaten at a Damascus checkpoint. Following his family, Taim's invisible spirit watches his loved ones, commenting on their lives and struggles. Taim's state of limbo between life and death is meant to be a metaphor for the current Syrian crisis, the National spoke to the play’s writer Mohammad Al-Attar.

Attar told the National that he chose a family to center his story around in order to endear them to audiences, making Syrians seem like living people instead of names on a tragic news story. This is important to understanding how to help them and understand the situation in Syria, Attar said.