On the Boards is welcoming Lebanese actor, director and visual artist Rabih Mroué back to their stage with his most recent multimedia work, Riding on a Cloud. The piece is inspired by the artist’s younger brother Yasser, who sustained a major head injury in the Lebanese Civil War, and runs from Thursday January 28 through Sunday.
Riding on a Cloud comprises home videos, recordings, images and poems that address not only the difficulty of trauma and war when it hits, literally, too close to home, but also representation, memory and language through Yasser Mroué’s aphasia. Through the frame of Yasser’s quest to relearn language, the show blends truth and fiction, reality and theatre, character and actor into a larger inquiry of how we construct our own stories.
From the press release:
Rabih Mroué is a stage and film actor, playwright, and visual artist born in Beirut and working in Lebanon and internationally. Mroué was instrumental with partner Lina Saneh in pushing Lebanese theater into more avant-garde territory and moving away from European influences; leading the New York Times to describe them as “to Beirut what the Wooster Group is to New York: a blend of avant-garde innovation, conceptual complexity and political urgency, all grounded in earthy humor.”
Rabih Mroué was last seen at OtB in 2011 with his work Looking for a missing employee. Riding on a Cloud opened MoMA’s revamped Project 101 Series last April, and his theater and visual pieces have been seen around the world. You can buy tickets for Riding on a Cloud at the On the Boards website ($25 general admission, $12 under 25). OtB is also hosting a pay-what-you-can Studio Supper with Capitol Hill restaurant mamnoon before the show on opening night–get details here.
Rabih Mroué at On the Boards
When: Thursday-Saturday, January 28-30 at 8 PM; Sunday, January 31 at 5 PM
Where: On the Boards (100 W Roy St.)
