friday 25 october

Raphaël Khouri wants to heal the world with plants.
When his quest for a cure takes him to Greece and he discovers the radical, queer and intersectional origins of Western theatre, he is forced to wonder where it all went wrong. ‘Today, all theatres are talking about including transgender people. You can't include us in your theatre because you stole it from us. And you've stripped it of all its magic, its meaning, its function and its sanctity. It's time for us to take it back’.

Inspired by true events, Raphaël tells two intertwining stories: his own, as a trans Jordanian playwright, and his three-year investigation into the mystery of Dionysus, the trans god of theatre.
Combining autobiographical performance, live scenography and figurines, It Was Paradise, Unfortunately - here in a solo version - offers radical and inclusive new perspectives for theatre artists and audiences in the 21st century.

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Staged reading version

Raphaël Khouri is a Jordanian documentary playwright and director who lives between Berlin and Cairo. He is the author of several plays, including the first trans Arabic play, ‘She He Me’ (staged at Kosmos Theatre, Vienna 2019 and also performed online as part of the Criminal Queerness Festival 2020 in NYC), and ‘No Matter Where I Go’, a play about the lives of queer women and non-binary Lebanese people, staged in Beirut in 2014.

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Concept, writing & performance: Raphaël Khouri
French translation: Astrid Aïdolan-Ague
Produced by The Collective
Original commission by Outburst Arts, with the support of the Nebula Fund and the Goethe-Institut

Presented at transform! with the support of Onda - Office national de diffusion artistique.