REVIEW: The Horse of Jenin - Generous Storytelling

©️The Horse of Jenin Production

Alaa Shehada opens The Horse of Jenin with a comedy scene that’s funny on the surface but edged with something sharper. He’s at a barbershop; the barber hears he’s Palestinian and immediately announces, “Solidarity!” Shehada just wants his haircut. The audience laughs, but there’s a clear point beneath it — how easily people declare support while staying comfortably outside the reality they’re talking about.

It’s a fitting start, because the piece itself doesn’t rely on slogans. It takes its time, moving through a long chain of memories tied to the small wooden horse his grandfather gave him. That horse becomes the thread through childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. The object becomes a companion and a symbol of imagination, and in the Palestinian context, is tied to ideas of freedom.

The production wraps these memories in warm detail. Lily Dawford’s amber lighting gives the space a soft glow, and the harp lines guide the mood without ever pushing too hard. Four masks designed by Den Durand let Shehada slip between the people who shaped him: his grandfather, Ahmed, his closest friend, his first love, and his younger self. Sometimes the masks take on the faces of Palestinians on the streets, throwing back tear gas canisters in acts of resistance. This links personal memory with collective struggle, showing how individual experience and political reality intersect.

Sound does a lot of the work too: marching, curfews, distant blasts, the heaviness of checkpoints. Even in the gentlest stories, you feel the pressure of the world he grew up in. One moment in particular lands strongly. Shehada describes a performance interrupted by an incursion, the theatre losing power. The studio goes completely black. The audience lifts their phone lights, just as the audience did on the night he describes. It’s simple but deeply affecting.

The real history of the horse sits behind the narrative as well. The five-metre sculpture in Jenin, built from war debris by German artist Thomas Kilpper, included scrap metal from wrecked cars and an ambulance. It stood as a local landmark for twenty years, a symbol of resilience and resistance, until Israeli forces dismantled it on 29 October 2023. In the play, the horse that appears in Shehada’s version takes a different path. In an imagined sequence, Ahmed rides it, leaping and fading together from view. The moment is tender and slightly magical, the kind of image theatre can hold without explanation.

Shehada’s physicality adds another layer. He jokes about his own body, patting his stomach and shrugging off expectations. His movements convey a clear sense of place, showing the cramped classrooms of a refugee camp boys’ school and the restless energy of relatives at home. When he dances, runs, or leads the audience in applause in the theatre studio, he draws the audience into a rhythm, and the rhythm feels immediate and genuine.

The piece closes with, “The horse of Jenin is a horse of memory. Please take care of it.” After the stories Shehada has shared, the line feels grounded and meaningful. It doesn’t ask for pity or a big reaction, just attention and care. He’s a generous storyteller, and this production lets him be sharp, funny, gentle, and rooted in the worlds he comes from.

★★★★

This performance is currently running at Studio until 20 December, and at Holloway Theatre (Bush Theatre's Main Space) from 14 to 22 January.
For more information, please visit: https://www.bushtheatre.co.uk/event/the-horse-of-jenin/

Credits:

Writer & Performer: Alaa Shehada
Director: Katrien van Beurden & Thomas van Ouwerkerk
Comedy Consultant & Co-writer: Sam Beale
Mask Artist: Den Durand
Musician: Remy van Kesteren & Khalil Al Batran
Dramaturgy: Maarten Bos
Set Designer: Roderick Bredenoord

Presented by the Palestine Comedy Club in association with the Bush Theatre and produced in the Netherlands by Troupe Courage.