“How far can you run in five minutes?” asks Khawla Ibraheem of a man in the Royal Court audience. It could easily be an idle enquiry about fitness. Not here, however. For Ibraheem’s character, Mariam, a mother living in Gaza, it might be a matter of life and death.
The play’s title refers to the Israel Defense Forces’ practice of sometimes dropping a smaller device on a building — the “knock” on the roof — five minutes before a bombing attack to warn civilians to vacate. In this monologue, written by Ibraheem (a Syrian theatre-maker based in the occupied Golan Heights) a decade ago — but clearly horribly resonant now — Mariam becomes obsessed with the logistics of escape. She sets alarms, practises routes and works on techniques in the middle of the night.
At first, her training consists of hurrying down the stairs from her apartment on the seventh floor and sprinting as far as she can. But soon she is beset with questions. What about carrying her six-year-old son? What impact will that have on her speed and distance? What about her mother, who lives with them? How much stuff should she pack? Where should she run to?
She practises more, this time lugging a pillowcase full of books — a stand-in for her son — and a travel bag of belongings. More questions. What if her son is asleep and takes too long to wake? What if her mother is in the bathroom? What if she herself is in the bathroom and doesn’t hear the “knock”?
All this is delivered by Ibraheem with a light, witty touch on a near-empty stage in Oliver Butler’s production. A charismatic performer, she chats to the audience, neatly drawing them into her dilemmas. How much underwear should she take, she asks one woman. Which family mementoes? Should she pack for her husband, who is away studying?
But while the tone starts light, sprinkled with droll, sometimes absurd details — the loose floor tile, the irritating neighbour, her mother’s suspicions about her night-time outings — the cumulative picture is of a woman whose mind is crumbling under the strain of her terrifying situation. She times drills with her mother in the living room. At one point an explosion on the TV sends her hurtling out of the building, her startled son in her arms. Meanwhile a picture emerges of the grim details of daily life in Gaza even when not under attack: the intermittent electricity supply; the roadblocks; the shortages.
The twist at the end feels uncomfortable, devastating in its weight yet not quite believable. But overall this is a quietly powerful piece of theatre that expresses the hideous enormity and vast human cost of war by deftly intertwining the everyday and the unthinkable.
★★★★☆
To March 8, royalcourttheatre.com