DAMASCUS

Traverse Theatre Company
by David Greig

FRINGE FIRST WINNER 2007

"David Greig's Damascus, which premiered at the Traverse on Sunday night in front of a packed audience, is that rarest of things: a well-made and hugely entertaining contemporary comedy, set in the foyer of a small Damascus hotel, which shades persuasively into an ending that offers a glimpse of infinite tragedy, despair and horror." (The Scotsman)

Welcome to Damascus.

The oldest continuously inhabited city on earth, a jewel of the Arab world and the crossroads of the Middle East.

Paul is here to sell English language textbooks. It’s Valentine’s Day and he’d rather be at home with his wife.

Paul begins negotiations with his Syrian contact, Muna. Can he seal the deal? At first, misunderstandings multiply - then, their presumptions about one another fall away and new possibilities emerge.

Meanwhile Zacharia, the hotel porter, fervently hopes that Paul has brought some Scottish girls with him and all the while, in the background, Elena, the Ukrainian cocktail pianist, tinkles away...

In Damascus, a city of transformations, Paul grapples with language and love, meanings and misconceptions. And as his flight home is delayed by a bomb at Beirut Airport, he begins to wonder - will he ever leave?

David Greig is one of the leading playwrights of his generation in Scotland and has worked extensively in the Near & Middle East developing the work of young writers.

Damascus marks his sixth collaboration with director Philip Howard at the Traverse, following the premieres of Europe (1994), The Architect (1996), The Speculator (1999), Outlying Islands (2002), and his adaptation of Raja Shehadeh’s When the Bulbul Stopped Singing (2004), which has since played in Iran, the USA and Jordan.

Damascus is a Traverse Theatre commission. The full script is published by Faber & Faber and will be on sale at the Traverse.