Nowhere review

When Khalid Abdalla talks about “nowhere”, he is referring to a liminal space whose borders and precise definition are in constant flux. Sometimes, he means the shared imaginative space of theatre. Sometimes, it is a guarded territory of the mind, where dangerous ideas can be safely processed. Occasionally, it is the place that former prime minister Theresa May once dismissively claimed “citizens of the world” belong to.

In this knotty, deeply personal performance piece, Abdalla explores the profound sense of dislocation felt by displaced people, persons of mixed heritage, and those whose cultures and identities have been shaped by colonialism. It is directed by Omar Elerian, who recently helmed Nassim Soleimanpour’s ECHO (Every Cold-Hearted Oxygen) at London’s Royal Court. There are distinct parallels between the two pieces. Both feature a single actor against a backdrop of overlapping screens, both involve extensive video projections, and both discuss displacement and recent Middle Eastern history. Here, though, the technical elements recede into the background. Elerian keeps the focus tightly on Abdalla’s racing stream of consciousness.

Abdalla – who played a similarly lost and bewildered narrator in Mnemonic at the National Theatre – is an engaging presence, balancing affable awkwardness with a calm, focused intensity. During especially moving moments, he reveals flashes of anger or pity, his resonant voice momentarily breaking. At other times, he fidgets, wringing his hands, folding an origami dove or thumbing through old photographs as he relates his family history – both his father and grandfather were political prisoners – along with recollections of his own activism during the 2011 Egyptian revolution.

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