During the Lebanese Civil War, a demarcation line cleaved the city of Beirut into two factions, one predominantly Christian and another that was largely Muslim. So stark were these divisions that as the conflict dragged on, green foliage began to grow in this zone, which led it to be colloquially known as the Green Line.
In Makram Ayache’s wistful new play of the same name, now running at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, the Green Line becomes a symbol of division in all its forms — social, cultural, familial and even intrapersonal.
Ayache’s 80-minute work is itself a drama divided, centred on a pair of tender love stories, each set four decades apart in Beirut.
One, taking place in 1978, follows two young women, Mona (Zaynna Khalife) and Yara (Basma Baydoun), whose blossoming romance is threatened by the civil war and by each of their families.
Another, set in 2018, concerns Rami (Oshen Aoun), a Lebanese-Canadian who travels the Beirut to bury his father and, in the process, works to uncover an age-old family secret — all with the help of Fifi (Waseem Alzer), a drag performer whom Rami meets at a local gay bar.
Ayache’s writing, much like in his previous play “The Hooves Belonged to the Deer,” is lyrical and heady, if verbose. It inhabits a space between naturalism and pure abstractionism. Dialogue seamlessly transitions into soliloquy, then back again. Shifts between the play’s two main settings are handled with ease and absolute clarity.
Ayache, who also directs, has built a production that’s equally slippery and ethereal, unfolding almost like a memory play under Kit Norman and Jareth Li’s warm, sepia-toned lighting designs. Meanwhile, the centrepiece of Anahita Dehbonehie’s set is a square, concrete playing space, tilted on an angle.
At Thursday’s opening night, however, some actors still seemed to be settling into their roles. A couple performances felt mannered. There were also the occasional line slips. All this added a sense of heaviness to an already laborious script.
Aoun delivers the strongest, most vivid performance in the dual roles of Rami (in the 2018 storyline) and Naseeb (from 1978), Mona’s uncompromising older brother, whose only goal is to keep his sister safe during the war, no matter the personal cost to either her or himself.
But my biggest qualm with “The Green Line,” produced by In Arms Theatre Company and the Mena Collective in association with Buddies and Factory Theatre, is that Ayache’s flowery, poetic language — so beautiful to hear in the moment — comes at the expense of the play’s broader, overarching narrative.
It’s only inevitable, with a work of this premise, that Ayache’s dual storylines should intersect. But it takes too long to arrive at that point, deflating much of the tension established early in the play. And when these narratives do eventually meet, the play rushes to its conclusion far too quickly.
Most crucially, if Ayache had better developed the characters of Fifi and Naseeb, some of the twists that come in the play’s back end would likely feel less contrived.
With additional dramaturgical work, “The Green Line” could be both tightened and sharpened. But right now, the production on stage at Buddies, opening the theatre’s 2025-26 season, is a bit of a miss for a company that’s been doing some extraordinary work over the past year.
