Sharjah 24 – AFP: Dressed all in white, a man pretends to aim a slingshot towards another who, running away, tries to dodge the imaginary rock flung towards him.
"Hassituha" (You Felt It), a mostly silent play from eastern Libya, symbolises both the country's divisions between west and east, and the rebirth of Libya's National Theatre Festival, which staged a comeback this week in Tripoli after a 15-year hiatus.
When it last took place in 2008, the festival was to be held again in four years.
Before that could happen, a NATO-backed uprising led to the overthrow and killing of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011. With a myriad of militias subsequently vying for power, more than a decade of stop-start conflict followed before a period of relative stability.
Taking to stages in the capital Tripoli and Misrata, about 190 kilometres (120 miles) to the east, performers came from 11 cities around Libya -- a country split between a United Nations-supported government in the west and a rival administration backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar in the east.
"Hassituha", performed at Tripoli's Scouts Theatre by a group who travelled from Marj in eastern Libya, was well received by an audience of more than 1,000 people.
"Some of them burst into tears" over the actors' performances, Muhammad al-Khaitouni, a spectator, said after seeing the play. He said the actors "mostly used gestures and other non-verbal expressions, but they quickly conveyed the meaning to us".
Accompanying his father and two brothers, Khaled al-Muwadhaf, 14, said the actors demonstrated the suffering brought by the chaos, poverty, and political corruption that has gripped the North African nation despite its oil wealth.
Ali al-Qadiri, who directed the play, said he believed the show was a success because it touched on the circumstances of ordinary Libyans, including a "lack of opportunities, and the economic stagnation that most cities in Libya suffer from".
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