There are no words in this startling physical production from Palestinian theatre company, Khashabi. A battered mannequin lies splayed on a bare stage. A huddle of women carry on bodies, gashed, broken-boned and in one case, headless. These are their children, grown-up, lifeless, eternally loved. Sometimes you think their words are coming, in pregnant pauses when they stand before microphones, as if about to speak. Yet no words emerge. The meaning of this becomes apparent: how do you find language to express the maternal anguish featured in the eviscerated space here?
Milk was conceived by Bashar Murkus in 2022 but it could just as well have been made in response to the current killings of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces – so many of them mothers and children in Gaza. That this production feels so hauntingly relevant to the present moment says something about the circularity of violence for those living under occupation in the region.
