It’s been a while since the Bay Area was treated to one of Betty Shamieh’s plays.
The Palestinian-American San Francisco native had a couple of premieres at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre in 2005 and 2008, and she’s sometimes had short plays in Golden Thread Productions’ ReOrient Festival, as she will again this fall. By and large, though, local fans of Shamieh’s work have largely had to read about her new plays in New York and elsewhere.
Now San Francisco’s Arabian Shakespeare Festival is reviving Shamieh’s “Territories,” which premiered at Magic Theatre in 2008. Set during the Crusades circa 1187, “Territories” imagining a sort of tug-of-war between the sultan Saladin, the notoriously merciless French Crusader Reginald of Chatillon, and the woman Reginald is holding prisoner, who may or may not be Saladin’s sister. Suzanne Dean directs a cast featuring Katrina Yashar, Tarek Khan and ASF artistic director William J. Brown III.
Details: Through May 19; Royce Gallery, 2901 Mariposa St., San Francisco; $15-$35; 408-499-0017, www.arabianshakes.org"It’s been a while since the Bay Area was treated to one of Betty Shamieh’s plays...By and large, though, local fans of Shamieh’s work have largely had to read about her new plays in New York and elsewhere."
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