Shawarma – the Show

Perk – VIP parking; Fun surprise – all the guests with title, for example our Ambassador, were invited onto the stage for a piece of cake during a little birthday celebration in the first act; Would’a been nice – (surprise surprise) understanding French so I could appreciate the prolific amount of dialogue and nuances of culture; Too Bad – the producer/playwright/lead proceeded to say his thanks for 45 minutes after the show finished at midnight…ugh. In short, which is pretty short when one does not have a working knowledge of the spoken language, Shawarma is an annual local production put on by the Lebanese community (there is a large Lebanese community in many or the more major cities in West Africa, who typically carry a good portion of the wealth). The show is basically a comedy/commentary on the generational identity crisis as the “oldies” fully identify with their Lebanese roots where the “youngsters” feel they are Ivorian, being that they have never even been to Lebanon, this tension is underlined by the classic debate of marriage for the sake of good relations versus marriage for love. It was apparently funny given that those in the crowd that actually understood seemed to get in some pretty hearty laughs. Though I’m glad I went, given that it is said to be the only play one will see here, I must say, I got more out of Madame Butterfly (an opera set in Japan written by an American and performed in Italian).