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 linked to an act of violence that shook the community. The plot of the play *Fear* is based on real 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, as the criminal investigation gets underway. *Fear* is like a psychological reconstruction: the act of violence itself is the starting point, while attention turns to what gives rise to it—to the moment when fear becomes action. The play’s structure resembles an investigation: 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 investigation 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 look afresh at what we tend to take for granted in everyday life: stereotypes, social hierarchies, prejudices, and the forms fear itself can take. A liminal—intermediate—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. Fear of loneliness, of failing to become what is expected, of being rejected, of forgetting and being forgotten, of losing one’s identity, 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 inhabit such a 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 1980 in Damascus, Syria, currently lives and works in Berlin. After studying literature and then theatre studies in his hometown, he earned a master’s degree in drama studies at 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, and the Avignon Festival. Al Attar also writes articles and has focused extensively on the Syrian revolution since 2011, refugees, and the war in his country.