Masahat and the Palestine Committee in Norway invite you to an evening at Riksteatret with the internationally acclaimed play Deadlift - الحمّالون.
The play is inspired by, and a tribute to, Suleiman Mansour’s iconic painting Camel of Hardships (1973), which shows a porter carrying Jerusalem on his back. It is a wordless theatrical meditation on how much a human body, and a people, can bear before endurance itself becomes an act of resistance.
Deadlift - الحمّالون is a visual and physical performance by Bashar Murkus, one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Palestinian theatre. It is a powerful Palestinian work of art that communicates through body, image and movement, exploring themes such as burden, endurance, destruction, care, resistance and rebuilding. The work is produced by Al-Harah Theatre in partnership with Boy Jonkergouw Producties and Sweden’s Riksteatern.
We look forward to welcoming you to a play that will stay with you long after the evening is over.
After the performance, there will be a conversation with Marina Barham, director of Al-Harah Theatre.
What do the critics say?
“A layered visual experience that dislodges the audience from passive comfort and turns the watching body into a hidden participant carrying the work’s questions beyond the theatre.” – Dr. Ihab Bseiso
“Political contemporary theatre in which the body becomes collective memory, movement replaces verbal narration and rebuilding is imagined as a shared rather than individual act.” – Mohammad Filat
“Not simply watched but carried: an uncompromising experience whose strength lies in its questions, disciplined performances and refusal to romanticise endurance.” – Saeed Zarzar
Highlights from the press:
Theaterkrant: Praised the production’s powerful translation of carrying, injury and care into stage images, describing the weight of the stones as a ritual action that tests the Palestinian body’s limits and capacity to rise after being broken.
de Volkskrant: Highlighted Murkus’s poetic, surreal theatre about holding on to hope amid destruction.
Trouw: Framed exhaustion not as weakness but as resistance, noting how the performance refuses a conventional heroic image and makes fatigue itself politically and emotionally visible.
Credits
Concept, Visual Design and Direction: Bashar Murkus
Performers: Ehab Abed, Wajdi Khalid, Reem Talhami, Nicola Zreineh
Set Design: Nancy Mkaabal and Bashar Murkus
Music: Wouter de Belder
Lighting Design: Bart Verzellenberg
Technical Direction and Set Construction: Issam Rishmawi
Assistant Director/Stage Manager: Hadil Khateb
Executive Producer: George Matar
Producer: Marina Barham
Produced by: Al-Harah Theatre, Boy Jonkergouw Producties and Riksteatern
With financial support from Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) and The Danish House in Palestine.
