Production & Script
MARWA KHALIL & WAFA’A HALAWI

Fundraising & Partnerships Consultant
MICHELE FENIANOS

Production Management
MFG CONSULTING

Direction & Scenography
RIAD CHIRAZI

Cast
SERENA CHAMI, WAFA’A HALAWI & MARWA KHALIL

After being the perfect housewife, Amal decides to throw her apron and get a divorce. However, in a society like in Lebanon, divorce is a hectic journey and sometimes even a demeaning one for a woman who decides to move on after her husband’s departure. As Amal confides in her fictive neighbor, she tells her about the reasons behind her divorce, her point of view on life, love, couples, family, and education. Today is her son’s birthday. The broken family has to meet including the ex-husband, his new fiancée, the ex-mother-in-law and the kids. What will be Amal’s place in the family picture? And most importantly now, does she have a place in society?

“Mafroukeh” is a theater play (in Arabic) that tackles the struggles of a Lebanese woman after her divorce. It explores her journey confronting a patriarchal society with archaic traditions, gender limitations, and difficulties to rebuild her life and to cope with new challenges allowing her to be the new person she has become. The play portrays the legal, social, emotional, psychological and economic effects that lead her to feel like a “lesser” citizen. Inferior both in front of the law and to people’s eyes, she is left feeling worn out, torn down, sometimes abused and often used, hence the title “Mafroukeh*”.

*Mafroukeh is a delicious Lebanese dessert but its literate meaning in Arabic is to be washed-out, kneaded, squeezed, drained, etc.