Syrian Drama: It’s Not Over Yet

A Syrian TV series looks at the psychological and moral damage caused by the ongoing crisis through the speech of everyday meetings.

The crisis in Syria has created a cross-section, perhaps the majority of the population, that lives in the hope that a miracle will put an end to this deadly show that takes place daily so that the Umayyad capital can go back to its old bustling self, a city bursting with life whose residents boast that it is one of the safest in the world...

On the ground however, there is no glimmer of a peaceful solution that could save the country. All faith has been lost in al-Dunya TV, which during breaks used to play a jingle saying “It’s Over.” People have started playing on the phrase saying, “Syria is over but the crisis is well.”

This idea caught the attention of the young Syrian actor Yamen Hajli. So he decided to try his hand at directing a TV series whose script was written by Ahmad Kassar, a student at the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus. The actors include Mazen Abbas, Hala Diab and Talal Mardini.

The series of 30 episodes, each less than four minutes long, presents people’s opinions on the crisis through the everyday conversations which take place around the events in the story.

The saga, which lasts only two hours but is spread over 30 episodes, will be aired on the Syrian TV next Ramadan.

“We do not discuss the political crisis, only the moral side and its legacy in terms of psychological and moral damage. We try to explore public opinion through a backlog of daily conversations that accumulated in our heads and we present these conversations and opinions through the characters in the series,” says Hajli in an interview with Al-Akhbar.

He adds: “We touch on the issues that are preoccupying Syrians these days, like the high cost of living and the three-fold increase in the price of some goods. We do this through the vocabulary of the crisis, which has consecrated conversations that get repeated tens of times daily. And this has contributed to people’s low morale.”

This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.