On a night with a sudden electricity outage in Beirut, the artist and her historian husband promised each other to research the history of power outages in Lebanon. They went on a journey collecting documents. Some were simply not accessible. The paper trail led them to archives in five different countries. They reached as far back as 1906, when electricity was first introduced to Beirut. They found a transnational story involving businessmen, politicians, warlords, multi-national corporations, and colonial powers. They discovered traces of everyday acts of survival, resistance, and sabotage by workers and electricity users. They decided to trace their steps back and share it in this new play.

The Search for Power is a new theatre show inviting the audience to look into archival documents, inaccessible knowledge, and a personal quest for revenge.

Work – Tania El Khoury in collaboration with Ziad Abu-Rish
Performance – Tania El Khoury, Ziad Abu-Rish, and Petra Abousleiman
Research – Ziad Abu-Rish with support from Owain Lawson
Graphic Design – Jana Traboulsi
Production Design – Petra Abousleiman
Sound Design – Ali Beidoun
Dramaturgy – Deborah Pearson
UK Producer – Karl Taylor