Mohammad Al Attar: Fear

Translated from Arabic by Julija GULBINOVIČ

Aram is a young man who moved to Sweden with his mother from a war zone more than a decade ago. Emil grew up in a Swedish family, and his name becomes associated with an act of violence that has shaken the community. The plot of the play “Fear” is based on true events in a small Swedish town, where a student shot ten people at an educational institution; three of them died. Most of the victims were immigrants.

The stage narrative begins after the shooting, when the criminal investigation gets underway. “Fear” is like a psychological reconstruction: the act of violence itself serves as a point of departure, while attention is focused on what gave rise to it—the moment when fear turns into action. The play’s structure resembles an examination: stories are told through the memories and testimonies of different characters. Their accounts and silences piece together a picture of the event. Yet the deeper the inquiry goes, the clearer it becomes that there is no single truth, and that everyone has their own version of events.

This investigation offers an opportunity to reconsider what we tend to take for granted in everyday life: stereotypes, social hierarchies, prejudices and the forms fear itself takes. A liminal—in-between—space is created on stage, where the present and the past exist simultaneously. This is not a realistic interior, but a field of memory and investigation. Here, the living speak with the dead, memories become as real as the present, and events are continually reconstructed.

In this production, fear becomes the central axis, a state in which injustice and humiliation are gradually normalised. The fear of loneliness; of not becoming what is expected of you; of being rejected, forgotten, or forgotten by others; of losing your identity; the fear of the “other.” Fear accumulates unnoticed until it turns into aggression or self-destruction.

The production invites us to consider: what does it mean to be an inhabitant of this kind of world? Is justice finite? Where does responsibility for one’s actions begin? This is a work about society today and our responsibility for what it will be tomorrow.

Playwright Mohammad Al Attar, born in Damascus, Syria, in 1980, currently lives and works in Berlin. He studied literature and later theatre studies in his home city, and earned a master’s degree in drama studies from Goldsmiths, University of London. His plays, written originally in Arabic, and their translations have been presented at theatres and festivals in various countries, including Volksbühne in Berlin, Lincoln Center in New York, the Royal Court Theatre in London, the Avignon Festival and many others. Al Attar also writes articles and has focused extensively on the Syrian revolution since 2011, as well as on refugees and the war in his country.