“The Other Side of the Garden”: A Meditation on Memory, Image, and Loss

​In The Other Side of the Garden, director Ossama Halal and the Koon Theater Group members constructed a layered theatrical experience that probes the individual’s relationship with memory, imagery, and the existential weight of fear—or its absence.

​As we inhabit a world saturated with images,  the former possess a unique power to transcend language and communicate across boundaries. they seemingly birth a realm of stereotypical yet absurd situations where the subjects are  dehumanizated. Nowhere is this more evident than in the visual narratives of war, where victims are often reduced to symbols, stripped of dignity and identity. This is the terrain Halal’s production dares to navigate.

Drawing inspiration from Hans Christian Andersen’s Story of a Mother, the performance begins with a familiar story: a mother’s desperate journey to confront Death and reclaim her child. In her path lie trials that demand profound sacrifice—her voice, her eyes, her hair. Yet, despite her offerings, her quest remains unfulfilled. Halal and the Koon ensemble use this narrative not as an end, but as a point of departure.

 

The Grieving Mother as Archetype

The ensemble—Hamza Hamadeh, Sarah Mashmoushi, Stephanie Kayal, Sarah Zein, Saba Korani, and Shadi Maqresh—infuse the performance with ritualistic layers that explore the Syrian mother’s grief through symbolic gestures and totemic rites. These layers interrogate how memory and imagery are consumed, and how fear is shaped—or numbed—by repetition. In this context, the image is not a passive backdrop but an active agent that amplifies loss and perpetuates its echo.The play resumes where Andersen’s tale ends: in the Garden of Death. The son, now an angelic figure, pleads with his mother not to weep.

Death is neither embraced nor denied—it is ritualized, transformed into a sacrificial act. The performance oscillates between strength and sorrow, resistance and surrender, crafting a space where grief is both personal and collective.

The production rests on three pillars: Halal’s scenographic vision, the dramaturgical collaboration of Alaa Eldin El Alem and Hisham Hamidan with the cast, and a haunting  score by Singio Banaya that was played live on the stage. Together, these elements elevate the Syrian experience—its wounds, injustices, and resilience—into a transcendental theatrical language. The use of masks, is not merely aesthetic; it abstracts the mother’s identity, allowing her pain to become universal, unbound by the voyeurism of image consumption.The mask also becomes a metaphor for concealed suffering. Unlike the overt dramatization of grief often seen in contemporary tragedy, The Other Side of the Garden resists sensationalism. When the mother sings, “I raised you, little Hassan,” her voice is childlike, her movements mimic drowning, and her smile is hollow. Even her screams are silent, channeled through the mask.

In rare moments when her human face is revealed, she speaks directly to the audience: “I will not teach you math, because you will learn on your own that two loaves of bread are more than one… And when you are hungry, place your hand on your stomach and scream… and pray to God for deliverance.” These transitions—from poetic lament to stark realism—redefine the mother’s role, not as a passive mourner, but as a figure of endurance and transformation.

 

Escaping the Image

Time in the performance is fragmented, diffused into vignettes that dilute the singularity of loss. The actors revisit childhood memories—birthdays, school days, university life—interwoven with historical events like the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Palestinian intifada. These recollections intersect with Andersen’s narrative, creating a tapestry that links Syria’s present to its collective past, resisting the immediacy and brutality of modern image culture.Scenes such as the mother offering her eyes, only for new ones to grow, or a girl refusing to be photographed, underscore the violence of visual consumption. In one poignant moment, a girl says, “I don’t know where I am, but I know I saw him and photographed him… I don’t want to be the boy, or death, or the camera… I just don’t want to be photographed.” Here, the image becomes a weapon, not a witness.In the penultimate scene, Maqresh cries out in a desperate attempt to reclaim memory. The ensemble joins in, casting away black-and-white photographs and shedding their costumes in a whirlwind of sound and motion. What remains are the actors themselves—bare, aware, and present—reminding us that all we have witnessed is, after all, a performance. Halal leans into this meta-theatricality, using stutters, apologies, and deliberate ruptures to remind us of the artifice, and to offer an image of death that is terrifying because it is tenderly sublime.Through its scenography, music, and layered storytelling, The Other Side of the Garden becomes a meditation on death, memory, and the tyranny of the image. It is a requiem not just for the lost, but for the way we remember them.