Dunya Productions Presents West Coast Premiere Of THE RETURN

Dunya Productions presents THE RETURN a play in four scenes by Hanna Eady and Edward Mast, opening Thursday October 26 at 8:00 PM.

THE RETURN is a one-act, 75 minute play about two people who meet in an auto-body shop in Herzilya, a mid-sized city in Israel. One of them is Palestinian, one of them is Israeli Jewish. They might or might not have known each other in the past. By the end of the play, both of their lives will be changed forever by the realities of present-day Israel.

The play was written by Hanna Eady and Edward Mast. Hanna Eady grew up Palestinian in northern Israel, and is a longtime resident of Bainbridge Island near Seattle. Edward Mast is also a longtime resident of Seattle. Eady and Mast have written several plays together, performing them around the U.S, in Palestinian territories, and inside Israel.

THE RETURN was written in English but had its world premiere in Hebrew for a mixed audience of Palestinians and Israeli Jews at Al-Midan, the Palestinian theater of Israel. The U.S. premiere was at Mosaic Theater in Washington D.C., and was followed by a production at Israeli Stage in Boston. Reviews of all three productions have called the play "must see theater", "a very sharp soul-searching reckoning", "so fractured, painful, and real that we can't help but be swept up in the injustice of it all", and "theater to shake you out of your seat and into a new perspective".

John Vreeke, a Seattle-based director who has worked extensively in Washington D.C., directed the U.S. Premiere at Mosaic Theater and returns to direct this entirely new production for Dunya Productions in Seattle. "I'm excited by the opportunity to come back to this powerful play and re-imagine a very different performance for this moment in time and for the very unusual performance space that Dunya Productions has created,' said Vreeke.

For this Seattle performance, the director and playwrights have chosen to cast a Black actor as the Palestinian. Co-author Hanna Eady says "We made this choice because Palestinians are in every color, including Black Palestinians, and also because the play deals with issues of systemic racism, white supremacy, saviorism, privilege, and internalized oppression. The experience of Palestinians in Israel has many close parallels with the experience of Black and Brown people and other people of color in the United States, and we want to highlight the patterns across borders."

The authors of THE RETURN are both members of Dunya Productions, which was founded in 2019 to amplify the voices of the Middle East, North African, and Arab (MENAA+) people as well as other marginalized communities. During the pandemic, Dunya Productions produced several online performances, including Letters from Palestinine in the Time of the Virus and Loved Ones: Families of the Incarcerated, both by Hanna Eady and Edward Mast. Live performances before and after the pandemic have included Flood by Jenna Eady and Hanna Eady and Nubian Stories and A Muslim Christmas Carol by Nabra Nelson.

THE RETURN will run Thursday-Saturday nights at 8:00 pm for four weeks, October 26 through November 18. Tickets are available on a sliding scale at https://dunyaproductions.square.site/upcoming.

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