A THEATRICAL INTERROGATION OF STATE CRIME AND PRESS BIA DURING GENOCIDE

By Madeleine Anderson ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Press Invite

Written and directed by Sînziana Cojocărescu, BÉZNĂ Theatre’s blistering multimedia investigation confronts the machinery used to distort public perception.

In The First Year (of the Gaza Genocide in the Media), writer-director Sînziana Cojocărescu presents a surreal, probing, and at times playful challenge to audiences, explicitly calling out state violence while urging viewers to question what they pay attention to as a crisis of historic intensity unfolds.

Created in collaboration with researchers from Shadow World Investigations and the International State Crime Initiative, and rooted in direct testimony from Palestinians in Gaza, the show unpicks the very theatre of journalism. Set against the backdrop of media coverage following 7 October 2023, Cojocărescu’s script, featuring additional writing by Hannah Khalil, Ahmed Masoud, and an anonymous British-based contributor, wears its thorough research heavily.

The four-person cast, comprising Maryam Abu Khaled, Luca Kamleh Chapman, Sara Masry, and Sofia, navigates a show that functions more as a dramatised essay than a conventional theatrical narrative. The production begins with a polished, plummy-voiced man answering questions on what resembles a television talent show. This sickly slickness jars violently against the harrowing realities being depicted, exposing how “normal” life continues in surreal proximity to untold horrors.

The sttrongest performance came from Palestinian actor Maryam Abu Khaled, who charmed the audience with her dry intensity. Skillfully mocking audience members one moment and building a fierce trust in the next, Abu Khaled transitions smoothly across characters and tones. In one striking sequence, she speaks from within a soil-filled glass tunnel, acting as though buried underground. Her voice, muffled through the glass, underscores a desperate sense of being ignored by the outside world.

Elsewhere, the performer Sofia delivers a sharp parody of BBC journalist Sally Nugent, recreating a broadcast interview to interrogate the internal monologues and inherent biases of UK media reporting. While the sequence occasionally lacks subtlety, its comic timing underlines the show’s broader critique of what passes for impartiality in mainstream newsrooms.

Written in a blend of English and Arabic, the production embraces a language barrier rather than attempting to smooth it over. The cast maintains a tight hold on the audience’s attention throughout, balancing surreal physical comedy, such as mimicking phone conversations in a stylised babble, with the somber, visceral reading of real testimonies from a warzone. Compelling lighting design flashes up numbers of massacred journalists and key dates alongside the action, ensuring the real-world stakes remain front and centre.

With its loosely strung scenes and deliberate rejection of a linear narrative on trauma The First Year needs some refinement. Yet as a theatrical interrogation into state crime , and the human cost behind journalistic choices, it remains a daring and necessary piece of work.

The First Year (of the Gaza Genocide in the Media) is currently being performed at The Diorama Theatre now until Saturday 10 October.

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Photo Credit: Alex Brenner