Looking for a Missing Employee

LEBANON

Documents of false suspicions, scandals, revelations of government corruption, and murder surround the case of a Ministry of Finance employee’s sudden disappearing in Beirut in 1996. The disappearance of a big sum of money furthermore raises a lot of questions. The employee’s wife, asserting her right to know her husband’s whereabouts, is arrested.
Based on actual events, playwright, director, and actor Rabih Mroué presents this work on a troubling criminal case and the implicated political and financial actors, searching for the “Truth” through relevant newspaper stories and photographs he has been collecting for decades.

He calmly but relentlessly compares all the material he has gathered. He sits among us as we may see his face while watching this meticulous presentation of the material on the screen. We gradually get a picture of the employee’s personality. His remains were found two months after his disappearance.

Mroué guides us to realise how manipulative and ambiguous all information is – in this case, in perfect agreement with the government’s interests.

 

With Greek and English surtitles

Greek surtitles

Lito Tsekoura

 

17 June

Post-show talk with the artists

Coordinated by Stefanie Carp, Artistic Advisor for International Theatre Productions, AEF