Theatre
Aleppo. A Portrait of Absence

Mohammad Al Attar, Omar Abusaada, Bissane Al Charif

Tue, 06/01/2021 -
Sat, 06/12/2021
Édifice Wilder – Espace danse

As part of Festival TransAmériques

With the support of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs


Aleppo, a city destroyed by war, rises from the ashes in the stories of its inhabitants. Precious tales told to one spectator at a time, a testimonial and a bequest.

Aleppo, a beloved city, a city destroyed. But remembered by its exiled citizens. Their stories bring back to life a hill, a mosque, a popular restaurant, all reduced to ruins. Aleppo. A Portrait of Absence conveys the cruelty of war but also the fundamental power of memory in the face of destruction.

The Syrian playwright Mohammad Al Attar gathered ten stories from ten inhabitants of Aleppo and then entrusted them to ten Montreal actors. Seated at the same table in the touching vertigo of one-on-one, an actor tells one of the precious tales to one spectator. Against a backdrop of an oversized map of Aleppo and in the intimacy of a theatre space, a city is reborn, a culture and a past brought back to life. A look at a Syria that goes beyond the clichés of the bombarded country portrayed in the media, Aleppo gives voice to those who resist, who forcefully reconstruct with words the beauty of a place now buried in rubble. Necessary.