'I hope we can return to our theatre – to what remains of it'
Mustafa Sheta ran The Freedom Theatre in a refugee camp in Jenin - then he was arrested by Israeli forces in 2023. Just a month after his release, their show Return to Palestine opens in London
By Holly O’Mahony
At the annual PalArt Festival, running at Camden’s Theatro Technis this week, a mixed bill of works focused on the Palestinian experience includes the UK premiere of Return to Palestine, devised by Jenin Refugee Camp’s internationally-commended The Freedom Theatre, and told by UK-based Palestinian artists. It follows an American-Palestinian, Jad, discovering his homeland through the stories of its people. Jad is a fictional character, but the tales he hears are true testimonials, collected from residents of cities and refugee camps across the Palestinian territories.
The play was conceived in 2016, and director Micaela Miranda remains at the helm. But it’s a malleable, evolving piece, and the stories audiences are hearing in London include up-to-date accounts of what’s happening in Jenin Refugee Camp in the West Bank, where an estimated 42,000 Palestinians have been displaced since January 2025.
Though the creators of its work often can’t travel with it, The Freedom Theatre has a far-reaching international presence. ‘Friends’ of the theatre have staged its plays all around the world – from the US to Iraq. In the UK, 2015 saw a national tour of The Siege, imagining a stand-off between armed Palestinians and the Israeli army at a holy site in Bethlehem. But while the Freedom Theatre’s mission is to share stories of the Palestinian experience, one of the most remarkable is that of its own origins. The theatre was founded in 2006 by Juliano Mer-Khamis, an Israeli-Palestinian actor, director, and former IDF soldier, and Zakaria Zubeidi, a Palestinian fighter who spent several years on Israel’s most-wanted list. Both men came to the conclusion nonviolent cultural resistance was the way forward, and despite coming from opposing sides of the conflict, they decided to work together.
The inspiration? Their mothers. Mer-Khamis’s mother was the Israeli-Jewish political and human rights activist Arna Mer-Khamis, who dedicated much of her life to educating Palestinian children, in part through theatre. She created the Stone Theatre, and initially ran it out of the home of Zubeidi’s mother, Samira Zubeidi.
Creating theatre under occupation has always come with dangers. Samira Zubeidi was targeted and killed during an Israeli raid on Jenin in 2002. Almost a decade later, in 2011, Mer-Khami was shot dead outside The Freedom Theatre by a masked gunman. Then, on 13 December 2023, the theatre was targeted again, ransacked by the IDF. Its artistic director Ahmed Tobasi and general manager Mustafa Sheta were arrested as part of a crackdown on Palestinian cultural figures. Tobasi was tortured but released the next day; Sheta was imprisoned for 15 months, only released in April 2025.
One month on from his release, Sheta speaks to Exeunt about Return to Palestine reaching UK shores, the struggles of keeping the spirit of The Freedom Theatre alive without access to their building, and his hopes for its future.
In Return to Palestine, the character Jad is told about his country through the stories from its residents. Where do those stories come from?
The production combines physical storytelling, live music, and elements of playback theatre: we travelled across the West Bank collecting stories. These are woven together in a script informing audiences about the real condition of the people living in Palestine. We believe in using art to confront oppression, process trauma, and build international solidarity. Our method centres the personal narrative and emotional truth of individuals. This enables a nuanced portrayal of life under occupation, beyond headlines or political soundbites.
Travelling across the West Bank was presumably no small task, even back in 2016. The Palestinian territories are divided with checkpoints, and there are swathes of Israel to cross between them.
Israel has divided the Palestinian cultures – there is no link between them. We have different thoughts, dreams and realities to one another. But through our Freedom Bus initiative, we were able to travel between communities within the occupied West Bank, collecting stories from Jenin, the Jordan Valley, South Hebron Hills, Bethlehem, and surrounding communities under threat.
The Freedom Bus brought together Palestinian and international artists, activists, and community members – including actors, musicians, writers, visual artists, human rights defenders, and students. In each community we visited, we worked closely with local coordinators and grassroots organisations to prepare the space, invite participants, and ensure people felt safe to share their stories. Events were open to the public and often held in community centres, schools, or even in the open air under trees or in courtyards.
People were encouraged to speak through trust-building exercises, music, food, and conversation – and the fact that the audience could immediately see their experiences honoured on stage was transformative. The method gave people a voice, dignity, and agency in their own narratives.
You weren’t able to visit Gaza from the West Bank, even before the war, but you were able to collect stories of those living there in Jabalia Refugee Camp for the original version of the play in 2016. Is it harder to involve Gazans now, in light of everything they’re going through?
We weren’t able to collect new stories from people in Gaza for this latest version of the play. Even in previous years, the Freedom Bus has never been able to enter Gaza, due to the Israeli-imposed siege and border restrictions. The Gaza stories that did inform earlier versions of our work were shared through long-standing artistic collaborations, digital exchanges, and personal testimonies gathered remotely via phone, email, or through joint projects with Gazan artists.
Dealing with people in Gaza right now is really sensitive, and it’s not easy to make direct contact. Even if we want to make work to help them, they may even turn round and say ‘it’s not your right to talk about us’. I can understand why they’re angry – their entire life condition has been destroyed. I can’t imagine it. But it’s important for us to make links between the people of Gaza and the world. We need to continue talking about them, though, and the play does include fragments that represent Gaza – most notably through a segment inspired by Letter from Gaza by Ghassan Kanafani.
