The quiet and brilliant resistance of ‘Horse of Jenin’: Theatre as Alaa intended it

As the sun sets on August, the hyperactivity of the Festival Fringe, which has been gripping the city of Edinburgh, begins to die down. What remains in the dust that settles in its wake are the shows that have left their mark. On the Festival and its box office, yes, but equally, on its audiences. Perhaps most notable among these is Alaa Shehada’s ‘Horse of Jenin’.

‘Horse of Jenin’ is a glowing reminder of art’s power in politics. It testifies to theatre’s potential as a vehicle for resistance and change. This harps back to movements in years gone by, not least Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, which was developed in 1970s Brazil to express marginalised political beliefs. Shehada’s piece salutes this quiet fight. This is theatre as God, Allah – or in this case, Alla – intended it.

The use of the masks in the poster could spark concern that this production is more akin to a puppet show. From just seconds into the performance, though, it is clear there is no cause for fear. Alaa has audience members in the palm of his hand. He is leisurely in the presence he commands, easily making digs at Guardian readers following his five-star review, whom he grills/quizzes on their English language skills.

Similarly, his use of physical theatre – which might bear negative connotations to the dreaded abstract “high-school theatre” parodied by SNL and tiktokers alike – is masterful. Alaa constructs the objects and places he is narrating from thin air: The hilarious early-2000s Nokia mobile his teacher owned, nicknamed “the fridge”, or the cramped classroom he was taught in, are brought to life through his slapstick but calculated movements.

The story centres on – spoiler alert – ‘The Horse of Jenin,’ which acts as an anchor around which Alaa lives his life. This refers to a sculpture designed by artist Thomas Klipper in 2003. Klipper collaborated with Palestinian teenagers to build the structure from the shrapnel and scraps he found among the rubble after the second Intifada.

The footage Alaa shows of the horse, when it toured from Jenin to Nablus, makes a laughing stock of Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), who detained the horse at the checkpoint to ensure it was not ‘Trojan’. It ultimately takes up residence at ‘horse roundabout’, setting the scene for pivotal moments in Alaa’s childhood; his first love; his first cigarette.

It is through these subtl,e relatable moments that Shehada captivates his audience. He illustrates the injustice of the occupation, not only for its despicable violations of international law, but for the everyday human experiences it steals:

Plans for Alaa’s first date in Ramallah are scarpered when a 19-year-old Israeli girl manning the checkpoint sees fit to detain his bus.  Similarly, Alaa’s grandfather, who gifted Alaa a toy horse when he was little (see title for theme), and who Alaa conjures up using frail and delicate movements, holds his grandchild for the first time. The sorrowful expression he wears in this moment somehow conveys all the torment of what it means for this infant to born not free.

Even the cramped classroom, hilarious though Alaa makes it, speaks to these limitations. The competition for space, fuelled by discriminatory planning laws that see nearly all Palestinian building permits turned down, denies the natural evolution of a people’s incoming generations. The result is overpopulation of Area A and B of the West Bank including East Jerusalem, while the rural communities that struggle to maintain their livelihoods in Area C are being edged out by settler violence. This show is all the more powerful for depicting the little tragedies and quieter impositions that curb how Palestinians live their lives.

So won over are the audience to Shehada’s cause that when the play escalates, replicating the experience of an IOF raid from inside the Freedom Theatre in Jenin, they hang on his word. This is made alarmingly real by a full theatre blackout and sounds of shooting outside. The audience, however, obediently pledges its solidarity by holding up their phones to light the room in a moving and brilliant spectacle.

It is poignant that this act of solidarity is taking place, given the current climate: Since 7 October 2023, Israel has used the increased attention on Gaza as a diversion to escalate its activity in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, advancing a state-settler coordinated approach to cement its control there.[1] Intensified military raids across the northern governorates, especially in refugee camps like Jenin, have been unrelenting, leading to mass displacements there.

This growing severity of the occupation has included a crackdown on Palestinian creative expression. On 13 December 2023, the offices of the same Freedom Theatre that Alaa depicts in his work were raided, looted and defaced by Israeli Forces, while three of its members were arrested from their homes.[2] One of these, the producer and general manager of the theatre, and staunch advocate for cultural resistance, Mustafa Sheta, was given six months’ administrative detention. This sentence has since been prolonged three times. PEN International most recently reported that Sheta remained in Gilboa prison as of late March 2025[3].

With freedom of expression in Jenin so undermined, it is moving how Alaa has managed to take the spirit of the theatre with him and reincarnate it in a way that is celebrated internationally. It takes the power out of Israeli oppression and sends a message back to the authorities that the artistry they endeavour to clamp down on cannot be stopped.

What is more, it feels all the more striking that this piece is touring in the UK, where the recent ban on ‘Palestine Action’ has prompted the arrest of hundreds of peaceful protestors. In Edinburgh, the show’s location in the Pleasance Dome looked out across Bristo Square to McEwan Hall, where one month ago students walked out of their graduation ceremony in protest, calling on The University of Edinburgh to “disclose, divest” their links to Israel.[4] Additionally. it’s success in Festival Fringe, as well as a petition by 500 Fringe artists calling for divestment, has hopefully amplified the pressure on the event’s organisers to shed ‘Baillie Gifford’ as their sponsor, given the company’s investments in arms and settlements.

Hot on the heels of its stellar Fringe run, Horse of Jenin is moving to London for a two-month stretch, where it shall sit under the nose of Starmer in all his complicity. When all seems lost to frustrating government inaction, surely this resistance can give us something to hope for?