Placing it in the area of postcolonial performance, this essay seeks to measure the capacities of (theatrical) performance and the role it plays in colonial contexts as represented in the documentary Arna’s Children. By examining this documentary, this essay analyses the role of theatre in the formation of alternative realities and projecting what Mishra and Hodge identify as “a configuration of experiences and insights, hopes and dreams arising from a hitherto silenced part of the world,” foregrounding challenges to dominant and exclusionary colonial narratives and practices. Questioning the subversive potential of theatre, this essay intensifies the need for expanding parameters of postcolonial theatre to include the Palestinian crisis as a central node of critical interpretation in discussions about the role of theatre in times of war and violence. The essay further argues that studying the role of theatre in the Palestinian context proposes new and intriguing ways of thinking about the ways in which theatre functions in colonial contexts, and it questions whether participants reverse or rehearse the impact of colonialism.

本文将其置于后殖民表演领域，旨在衡量（戏剧）表演的能力及其在殖民环境中所扮演的角色，如纪录片《阿尔纳的孩子》中所表现的那样。通过研究这部纪录片，本文分析了戏剧在替代现实形成中的作用，并投射了 Mishra 和 Hodge 所认为的“从迄今为止沉默的世界中产生的经验和洞察力、希望和梦想的组合”，突出挑战占主导地位和排他性的殖民叙事和做法。质疑戏剧的颠覆性潜力，本文强调需要扩大后殖民戏剧的范围，将巴勒斯坦危机作为批判​​性解释的中心节点，讨论戏剧在战争和暴力时期的作用。本文进一步认为，研究戏剧在巴勒斯坦语境中的作用提出了新的、有趣的思考方式，思考戏剧在殖民语境中的运作方式，并质疑参与者是否逆转或演练了殖民主义的影响。