‘I’m not waiting for permission’: Marena Riyad breaks Palestinian stereotypes with rom-com Majenin

As an actor, writer and observational comedian, Marena Riyad is always taking notes. When she perused the pages of her journals recently, she noticed a pattern: women being driven to the verge of madness while pursuing love.

That pattern inspired her to write her first play, Majenin: A Palestinian Love Story, which will be performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe next month after a London preview.

The word 'majenin' means 'crazy people' in Arabic, and the play, set between London and New York, tells of an intense romantic encounter between two Palestinians, an artist and a comedian, as they surrender to the throes of love-induced madness.

"As a woman, I have access to so many love stories from so many people, plus the number of times I've been left heartbroken too," Riyad tells The New Arab after a rehearsal for the play.

"There was a day where I was going through my journals, and I had this lightbulb moment where I knew I was going to have to share this – I couldn't hold onto it anymore.

"One of my friends had just gone through a breakup, and I was also dating people, and it was this thing that just culminated. I was like, 'I've gone absolutely mad… I'm going crazy, I don't even recognise myself'. I wanted to capture that feeling of going mad."

Riyad was born and raised in the Tulkarm refugee camp in Palestine and moved to Texas with her family as a pre-teen. She began acting in 2015 and, with the persistent encouragement of a fellow actor, took up stand-up comedy in late 2018. A few years later, she started Kuffiya Comedy, a nonprofit for comedy primarily from the SWANA diaspora, in Dallas, Texas.

"Stand-up was just the most comfortable place on earth for me, I think because I didn't dream of doing it. I didn't have the fear of failure… I kind of went into it with nothing," Riyad says. "I've been using my acting experience in my comedy, and it's been lovely playing with the two."

A love story on its own terms

After performing stand-up at last year's Fringe with the Palestine Comedy Club, Riyad embarked on a solo tour of the UK and Europe, where she noticed that her material on dating as a Palestinian-American woman was what resonated most with audiences – something that reinforced her belief that there was an appetite for a new kind of Palestinian storytelling on stage.

In Majenin, Riyad weaves stand-up comedy through the play as a means of narrating this lovers' tale. The protagonist is split in two: an inner, 'Lover Girl' narrator (Riyad), and her outer self, 'His Girl', portrayed by actress Nadia Dawber. Rounding off the all-Palestinian cast is George Kreitem, who plays the love interest, 'My Guy'.

"Every time I tell someone that I wrote a Palestinian love story, they are automatically expecting there to be occupation, war… I'm well aware of what the narrative is for everyone who is going to walk into the theatre," Riyad says of the play.

"The audience are coming in with their own baggage that the lovers are actually trying to push out from their life. The lovers have created a universe in which they can exist together and escape all of this shit, but the audience will be waiting for her to say 'Israel'. That is the tension that is going to be in the room – and the audience are not going to get what they want.

"I'm so appreciative of all the work that everybody put in before me to bring the Palestinian narrative to the level that it is at now, but I feel I am pushing the audience to the edge of what they expect from us."

A celebration of Palestinian culture

Though this is a Palestinian love story, the inspirations behind Majenin are transnational and eclectic.

A summary for the play points to the Richard Linklater film Before Sunrise, the television show Fleabag, and the ancient, tragic Arabic-language love story of Layla Wa Majnun as influences, but Riyad speaks with passionate admiration for Bollywood, Tollywood (Telugu-language cinema), and the Syrian and Egyptian musalsalat (television dramas) she watched with her mother in the US after leaving Palestine.

"Bollywood movies are so skilled at using a song and playing around with it a bit to convey an emotion and help you recall a certain moment — that's something I'm referencing and playing with in the play," Riyad says.

"When the play properly starts, it's the [Oum Kalthoum] song Alf Leila wa Leila – just a little bit of it – to really ground you in when these lovers meet eyes. That's when the meet-cute happens, and we're entering their universe.

"Alf Leila wa Leila, 'A Thousand and One Nights', is really the epitome of what the play is — this evening that is never-ending, that you don't want to end."

In a world where Palestinian actors are rarely cast as love interests, cast members Dawber and Kreitem hope Majenin will set a new precedent.

"This script captures the defiance, resilience, cheeky Palestinian humour, the generosity, and, obviously, the love," says Nazareth-born Dawber.

"There are so many layers: the food, the culture, the music, the dance, that are interwoven into the action of the script. So you get those important cultural moments showcased, but unfolding naturally through the action, which is something I don't really see much of right now."

"It's nice that on this project we get to marry comedy and romance together, and it's a great incentive to encourage more casting like this," says Kreitem, who was born and raised in Bethlehem.

"It's a beautiful story to tell, and I think it will really resonate with people. If you listen to anything about Palestine, it's always about the occupation. There's nothing about how we actually are as people, so I think it's going to be a very interesting way for people to learn and to teach each other about."

Beyond trauma and stereotypes 

Beyond the Edinburgh Fringe, Majenin has been picked up for a run at the AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas next spring, and Riyad hopes to take the play to Palestine in the near future, to audiences she says are eager for new kinds of storytelling on stage.

"Even in Palestine, the stories being told through plays are in relation to the occupation. People my age are like, 'We're sick and tired of this shit! Show us some fuckboys, show us some lovers! Show us some of the things that we are experiencing as people, and the decisions we're making, instead of the decisions being imposed on us that we have to react to,'" she says.

"We either talk about the lens of the Palestinian experience through trauma, or just comedy, as clowns. So where is it that we get to just be, and you can just watch us exist?

"That's a privilege we haven't been granted yet, but I'm not waiting for someone to give me permission."

'Majenin' runs from 5–31 August at Pleasance Dome (10 Dome) in Edinburgh as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It previews in London at Pleasance London on 1 August

Shahla Omar is a freelance journalist based in London

Follow her on Instagram: @shahlatan