REVIEW: Living with Drones - Theatre at Its Most Urgent

This haunting refrain threads through Living with Drones, an interactive work of live journalism by stitched! studio, directed by Sonya Fatah.

Living with Drones is as unsettling as it is quietly revolutionary. It is not a piece that seeks catharsis, nor does it offer easy answers. Instead, it demands a different kind of attention, one rooted in listening and responsibility. The minimal visuals and immersive soundscape work hand in hand to evoke Gaza’s reality without spectacle. In placing contemporary Palestinian war diaries alongside more universally recognised ones, such as Anne Frank’s Diary and Dr Atef Abu Saif’s The Drone Eats with Me and Don’t Look Left: A Diary of Genocide, the show centres the voices of communities that are marginalised, rather than those who narrate from positions of power.

Part documentary, part theatre, and part collective reflection, the piece invites its audience into the everyday reality of Gaza under constant drone surveillance, its sounds, silences, fears, and routines. Employing the form of a war diary, it weaves together archival footage, live oud music, and audience interaction, all grounded in one repeated reminder: “we are not actors, we are journalists.”

At the centre are two intertwining lives: Sondos, a law student, and Bashar, a human rights lawyer, performed by Christin El-Kholy and Laila Hashem. Their diary-like narratives unfold across multiple wars, mapping love and resistance through loss. Mariam Shak’a’s live oud performance weaves against this background, a sonic act of defiance. Her voice folds traditional Palestinian songs into the air, grounding the room in tenderness and endurance.

Sound remains its most haunting language. The drones, “Zananas” as they’re known locally, whir endlessly above, sometimes distant, sometimes suffocating, their presence shaping every breath. Between these sounds, fleeting videos of Gaza’s beaches and a wedding photo of Sondos and Bashar appear, moments of joy caught between devastation. Just as the audience begins to settle, paper leaflets, modelled after Israeli evacuation notices, fall from the ceiling. “Read them quickly, you don’t have much time,” Fatah urges. The moment lands with brutal clarity.

The show resists the moral simplification that often accompanies war narratives. Its characters, like the real people they represent, retain full agency. A striking example comes when Fatah, joined by the audience, discusses the journalist Bisan Owda, whose work has reached millions worldwide. Owda is often described as “humanising” Gaza for an international audience, but Living with Drones rethinks what that means. It reminds us that Gaza’s humanity has never been lost, only too often overlooked. What it demands is to be seen in its wholeness, beyond the flattened images of grief and ruin that dominate global media.

Throughout the performance, Fatah steps in as a “community gatherer,” inviting the audience to reflect on their own perceptions of Gaza, what words come to mind, and where those images come from. The conversation that follows makes clear what the piece argues most powerfully: Gaza is not defined by suffering alone. Its people, art, laughter, and tenderness exist fully, even within devastation. It has always been human, always complex, always alive. Gaza’s life, like its people, is not defined by loss alone but by persistence, humour, and love that endure even under the hum of drones.

Living with Drones is theatre at its most urgent, one that blurs the line between art and journalism to remind us that stories do not end when the curtain falls, especially when the drones are still in the sky.

“The story is changing as we speak.”

★★★★

For more information, please visit: https://cptheatre.co.uk/whatson/Living-with-Drones-2025

Credits

Story Sharer: Sondos Qwaidar, Bashar Sallout
Journalist / Storyteller: Christin El-Kholy, Laila Hashem
Journalist / Community Gatherer: Sonya Fatah
Musician: Mariam Shak’a
Stage Manager: Hania Noor
Light & Sound Designer: Skye Celia Lee Anderson
Producer: Diurnus

©️Photograph by Aleena Baig

“You will not hear the missile that kills you.”