Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Tyler Mello
27 February 2018
Theatre allows itself to speak directly to audience through the story of another. With this
authority, dialogue, conversations, and awareness grows. In performance the audience is made
vulnerable to the work and thus allows the audience to be susceptible to bias or impression.
Through these abilities that theatre presents, authors and playwrights can make their case on
social issues, politics, and create other commentary as fit. Adopting of this ‘access to strong
influence’ is what gave Jamil Khoury’s Precise Stones an interesting scope to its audience.
Precious Stones gives the audience a set of complex and flawed characters to shine light on a
controversial topic yet remain subjective, thus turning the audience to their own compass on the
issue — taking ones inherited identity versus their personal identity. Precious Stones takes place
in Chicago in the summer of 1989 during the first Palestinian Intifada and follows the story
between the two main characters Andrea, a Jewish American lesbian woman born and raised in
Chicago, and Leila, a married Palestinian woman born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. They meet
in attempt to organize a discussion group between their respective groups following the conflict
in the Middle East over the respective states. Throughout their objective they discover more of
themselves all the while discovering things that make them less of what they are told they should
be by peers and/or groups they belong to. This broader topic of character development in the two
Playwright Jamil Khoury mentions in the section preceding the script that it’s important
to ponder the four “inheritances” which all shape, enrich, as well as entrap the characters.
Khoury goes on to list inherited memory, inherited trauma, inherited knowledge and of course,
the inherited identity. By these four inheritances that Khoury discusses, his aim is to make the
actor or reader aware of the reasoning for character choice, motive, or emotion. Inherited identity
is the largest factor in the lives of these characters, meaning the environment they grew up in and
cultural background of their lives may not exactly describe who they are presently but the
identity of them is largely made up of what they have inherited from nurture rather nature or
personal experience. This is paralleled in Khoury’s Precious Stones with Leila and her cousin
Bassima. In act two scene one we see directly how Leila’s demeanor changes with both Bassima
and her, at this point, lover Rachel are in the same room. Leila is not at terms with the
intersection of her religion and/or heritage and her sexuality thus causing her characterization to
be stressed and even frustrated. As a result, Andrea feels she can’t tell anyone about her feelings
for Leila. “You’re afraid of being a lesbian,” Andrea tells her, during the final, climactic scene
where the couple is arguing. “You hide behind your culture.” Today this issue is widely seen in
numerous aspects; one of the more prevalent and pressing issues currently is with elected
government officials fearing to cross party lines. Government officials who may be on “the
right” or “the left” will avoid voting in favor of certain bills or issues over the idea that it’s
something the party itself disagree on. This stronghold on alliance to particular party, sect, or
group overshadows the individual choice that can be important for personal growth or even
often struggle deeply with developing their personal identity. Much like Leila, members of the
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LGBTQ+ community often face intense internal conflict due to rules and morals taught to them
and instilled upon by different groups they belong to. These members feel they must abandon
one thing in order to claim another — or fear being shunned by claiming themselves as the other.
Recognizing the privilege that allows certain members of minority identity groups to be fully
themselves is not widely spoken of. The realization and admitting of the privileges allows a
community of understanding and support for those oppressed by their “conflicting identities.”
The actors portraying the characters that Khoury himself describes as “…complex and
flawed, endowed with integrity yet perfectly capable of not always living up to her, or his, own
ideals” require immense work before even taking the stage. The characters are the driving force
of the works and the multiple layers to each one add much more to the actors job. Khoury
situates the characters in very specific, contrasting make up and finding an individual to play the
character is not always easy. Dramaturgical work on the actors side is pertinent to accurate
representation. Precious Stones’ characters are all valid and represent real people in this world
whether we see them or not, treating them as such and with respect and empathy is key to how
the play needs to be performed. The actors receive the privilege to step into these roles of real
life people oppressed by society and making sure to avoid making them a caricature is important
to the effective storytelling Precious Stones aims for. Understanding the context Jamil Khoury
gives on the play is key to it’s reception. A review by Maureen Clare Murphy from The
Electronic Intifada critics the play as being too open ended and raises too many questions, while
this was the aim of Khoury. Khoury says “my hope is that [Precious Stones] will encourage
audiences to pursue further learning about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The play should never
be presented in a tone that ‘takes sides’ or ‘skews the arguments.’ Nor should it self-consciously
strive to achieve ‘balance.” Khoury then goes on to discuss the plays importance of ambiguity or
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vagueness to allow audience to gather their own opinion. With this direction from the playwright
actors need to carefully formulate their opinions in respect to their character and portray them
accurately even if the actors own moral compass directs them otherwise.
The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in the Middle East has been raging for a little under a
century. As the basis background for this play it cannot be ignored despite such a hot button
issue. This work is key to opening conversation about the conflict pushing audience to formulate
an opinion, explore, and ask questions. Theatre allows this by bringing the audience through the
journey and thus forcing them to connect and empathize and some to sympathize with the
struggles seen. Theatre has this same effect across the world. In occupied Palestine classism
affects the citizens making mainstream media difficult to consume at times, theatre has always
been present and used to be cathartic, to be political, and as an avenue of art for the people.
Although due to the occupation of the state the theatre faces a censorship. A theatre jorunal
published by John Hopkins University outlines this and states “Today some censorship is still
exists that strengthens the roots of theatre, attract audiences, and address the burdensome
realities of occupation.” Khoury’s work does not face censorship in the states as it likely would
in Palestine but due to it’s incredible intersectionality and difficult subject matter it is too often
overlooked. Precious Stones is a piece with it’s set of complex and flawed characters, that teach
us to challenge our inherited identity and the concreteness of that identity, as well as recognize
that we must note our privilege if we do not have such strict reservations from whom we are told
we are — whether by environment, family, religion, or policy, identity can intersect and be valid.
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Bibliography
Cohen, Erin. "Precious Stones Crosses Boundaries of Sex, Class and Mideast Conflict."
Murphy, Maureen Clare. "Theater Review: Jamil Khoury's "Precious Stones"." The Electronic
Najjar, Michael Malek. "Precious Stones." 2014. Four Arab American Plays: Works by Leila
Buck, Jamil Khoury, Yussef El Guindi, and Lameece Issaq Et Jacob Kader. Jefferson:
Nassar, Hala Kh. “Stories from under Occupation: Performing the Palestinian Experience.”
Theatre Journal, vol. 58, no. 1, 2006, pp. 15–37. JSTOR, JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/25069777.
allace, Naomi and Ismail Khalidi. "The Last Taboo? The "Palestine Exception" in American
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