War is part of everyday life for the author, director and actor Rabih Mroué. Mroué, who was born in Lebanon in 1967, has known his homeland only in a state of war. Battle fronts dividing families, snipers and martyrs, violence committed in the name of religion, the omnipresence of death: it takes a special kind of humour and the dramatic talent of Rabih Mroué to stage the frenzy of this war-torn country as a tragic farce. The setting is simple and based on the oriental tradition of storytelling. Four actors sit on a couch facing the audience. Above each actor’s head is a screen projecting posters of the martyrs who lost their lives during the civil war. They tell how they were killed in battle, only to come back to life in the next round, switch sides and die again. The various and competing narratives weave a dense web that reveals the monstrosity of this conflict. (esc)