A Knock on the Roof

A KNOCK ON THE ROOF

“A Knock on the Roof,”
written and performed by Khawla Ibraheem,
developed and directed by Oliver Butler
New York Theatre Workshop, 79 East 4th Street, NYC.
Co-produced with piecebypiece productions, in partnership with Under the Radar.
Jan. 10 to Feb. 16, 2025. Tuesday – Sunday, 7 PM. Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday at 2 or 3 PM. Saturday-Sunday, 2 PM. Tickets are $30 at nytheatreworkshop.org.
Reviewed by Glenda Frank

Khawla Ibraheem in "A Knock on the Roof" at New York Theatre Workshop.
Photo by Valerie Terranova.

It’s challenging to write about war. Many writers settle for recreating skirmishes and battles, telling stories about the soldiers or the corollary damage of victims caught in the crossfire. Khawla Ibraheem, both writer and sole performer of “A Knock on the Roof,” now at New York Theatre Workshop, brings us a Gazan woman who chooses an active stance, and that perspectives makes a dramatic difference. We experience the danger with Mariam. In every choice, we feel her terror and resourcefulness.

I’m not convinced that depicting Gaza without the politics and the depth of deprivation works, but it seems a prudent choice in this charged climate. Instead, our protagonist, establishes context by telling us about the hot summer, the polluted beach where her son plays, and her downstairs neighbors in the apartment building she must flee.

She has five minutes between the “knock on the roof “ warning and the explosives that transform homes into rubble. With her husband abroad, she has become the head of the family. He may phone anxiously three times a day, but he seems to offer no advice. She lives with six- year-old Nour, her son. Her mother arrives to keep the family together in a time of crisis.

Mariam resolves not to collapse, to understand the limits of her five minutes reprieve. She begins with measurements. She tries a timed run, but on her first attempt she forgets her watch. She realizes that the five minutes does not take her out of sight of her building. Then she begins weighing things – first Nour and then the boy’s proxy. She carries the substitute as she runs. She begins to practice each day to increase speed and endurance. Her mother too runs, but in the house.

And then the focus shifts. Passing a razed building as she explores new routes, she realizes she might limit her losses if she hides valued items in the rubble. On one of her trips, an armed man challenges her, and she defends herself by claiming she is securing her husband’s favorite objects. We understand the culture.

All of this is so powerful that it’s disappointing when the tale stumbles into the implausible and breaks the spell. By then, at least for me, the small, disturbing omissions and inclusions that were easy to overlook before grow in magnitude. I began to wonder if the play was an intellectual exercise.

A word about the sound design. I overheard many complaints. Director Oliver Butler (What the Constitution Means to Me) blocked the show well, but the piece loses phrases, even sentences when the actor is in motion. As Mariam, Ibraheem is genial and upbeat, which seemed to skirt the experience rather than exploring the depths.

Based in the Golan Heights, Ibraheem is a familiar face in Palestinian theatres. “A Knock on the Roof” began as a 10 minute monologue in 2014. Her collaboration with Oliver started in 2022. She was scheduled for a full production at El-Hakawati and the Khashabi Theatre in Haifa in Oct. 2023. This version premiered at the Edinburgh Festival in 2024. The show has accumulated many awards.