A Knock on the Roof
Royal Court, London

A KNOCK ON THE ROOF is a one-person show. 

Written and performed by Khawla Ibraheem, and originating off-Broadway, it takes us through one woman’s experience in one precise location in Gaza in the present era. And its veracity sings.

Ibraheem, herself, is actually Syrian, but her life in the Golan Heights supported by extensive conversations with people from Gaza has equipped her to develop this play which is directed with unswerving confidence by Oliver Butler.

The performance opens with Ibraheem already on stage and communing easily with the incoming audience as if for an impromptu cabaret. We learn that she is playing Mariam, part Muslim, part Christian, that she is effectively a single mother (her husband is studying abroad) and that a bombing raid is due. Her mind is focused obsessively on one simple practicality: that the attacking army will drop a small, innocuous missile on her roof to warn of an imminent onslaught. She will then have five minutes to run — a reality much compromised by the fact that you can’t get far in five minutes, especially when you start from the seventh floor carrying your child and a bag bulging with keepsakes, and with an ageing mother in tow? Anyway, where can you run to?

Mariam repeatedly rehearses this desperate run while also asserting that she must behave “normally”: looking after her little boy, speaking on the phone to her husband who seems to inhabit another universe, coping with her mum and negotiating everyday life from laundry to food production. As power cuts proliferate — which means no water either — we share her minute-by-minute drudgery against a backdrop of terror. 

Ibraheem voices all the characters so that we visualise and believe in them as if they stand before us. The little boy is a particularly vivid and heart-rending depiction. Meanwhile she herself charms, amuses and draws us in so that we not only empathise but laugh at her antics and feel her humanity. Actor and script together bring us light and shade and keep us on our toes, even though we know that what is coming is as inevitable as nightfall. And in this sense, there are no surprises. 

The power of the play, though, is in its relentless truthfulness, and in the close scrutiny it allows of one human brain preparing itself for trauma. The detail is what elevates the piece. And when Mariam welcomes the ultimate attack with the words: “At last!” you share her sense of cathartic relief.

A play set in Gaza is, of course, hugely loaded, politically, and it’s perhaps a pity that this production ducks the bigger picture, relying for contextualisation on the audience’s pre-existing knowledge. After all, why are we watching this particular play right now, if not to chorus together in a united howl of anguish? Let’s face it, this is one of the most highly contentious areas on the world stage, a fact demanding acknowledgement in the play at least.  

Beautifully delivered though. Essential viewing and a powerful reality check. 

Runs until March 8. Box Office: 020 7565 5000, royalcourttheatre.com