Oum – A Son’s Quest for His Mother review – hybrid forces bring Bushra El-Turk’s haunting score to a vivid life

Barbican, LondonA tour-de-force by actor Nadia Amin centres this tale of the inherited trauma of exile while a trio of singers virtuosically blend Middle Eastern and European operatic idioms‘I wish she could have died soundlessly,” says Wahab, the 19-year-old at the heart of Oum – A Son’s Quest for His Mother. As he struggles to reach the hospital where his mother lies dying, he is angry and afraid, tormented by memories of their changing relationship. He recalls the moment the phone rang with the command to hurry to her bedside, the moment he witnessed a fatal attack during the conflict that drove them from their home, the moment he ceased to recognise his mother’s face, calling her only “the woman with the blond hair”, such – we gather – was the traumatic impact of exile on them both.Wahab’s reminiscences loop, falter, intertwine. The resulting spoken monologue, adapted by Wout van Tongeren from a novel by Lebanese-Canadian writer Wajdi Mouawad, runs almost continuously through the work. In Oum’s UK premiere, it was a tour-de-force delivered by Dutch actor Nadia Amin, who conjured the unthinkable on the nearly empty stage of Barbican Hall as she ran and froze, stamped and cowered. Continue reading...

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