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Tyler Mello

Dr. Samer Al-Saber

World Theatre History II

27 February 2018

The Personal is Political is Precious Stones

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

main characters alone offer a chance of self-reflection for the audience.


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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

larger issues such as legislative decisions.

People who are brought up in either conservative, religious, or uneducated environments

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

imposed by Israeli government on the theatres…but an authentic Palestinian national theatre

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."

Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle. N.p., 31 Mar. 2008. Web. 01 Mar. 2018.

Murphy, Maureen Clare. "Theater Review: Jamil Khoury's "Precious Stones"." The Electronic

Intifada. N.p., 11 Feb. 2017. Web. 01 Mar. 2018.

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:

McFarland, 2014. 45-86. Print.

Worthen, W. B. Wadsworth Anthology of Drama. Place of Publication Not Identified: Cengage

Learning, 2014. Print.

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

Theatre." Dramatist, vol. 20, no. 3, Jan/Feb2018, pp. 13-14. EBSCOhost,

login.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hft&A

N=127594647&site=eds-live.

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