AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The news out of Syria these days is a barrage of images: destroyed buildings, gruesome casualties, weeping mothers. It's both disturbing and inspiring to a thriving movement of Syrian songwriters, rappers, poets, writers, graffiti artists and actors trying to cope with what's happening around them.
NPR's Kelly McEvers recently attended a performance by Syrian artists in Beirut and sent this report.
KELLY MCEVERS, BYLINE: It starts in a theater...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: ...red seats, big screen, a proper emcee.
(APPLAUSE)
MCEVERS: Pretty soon, though, we're told to stand up. We follow the others onto the stage and behind the curtain. There, we find a dark stairway. Pieces of what look like discarded paper litter the floor. We realize they're slogans from when Syria's protest movement first started a year and a half ago: Our revolution is peaceful. The Syrian people are one.
Up the stairs, we're herded into a hot, dark room with black walls. The message is clear: subversive Syrian art can't be shown in the open.
A woman sits up front on a chair in a simple black dress. We can't tell you her name. She opens her mouth, and the stories of real Syrians begin pouring out.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: It's called documentary theater, plays or readings based on the words of actual people. In this case, a single actor will perform three stories. The first story is actually an email, a young guy in Syria writing to his brother in Brussels.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: It's 3 a.m., and next to the screen there is a Kalashnikov rifle, he writes. The screen lights the dim metal and the lovely colors dance on that killing machine.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: It's clear the two brothers were not the fighting types. The writer says he sold all their books to buy the gun.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: I know you'll come back from Brussels and try to stop me, the writer says. You'll tell me killing is the worst thing a person can do. You'll remind me that this revolution used to be peaceful, that civil disobedience is the way to bring down this regime. But I'm not that dreaming guy anymore, he says, a guy who thought he could understand the world with poetry. I'm a different creature now, he says, a creature with a memory grilled in blood and metal.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: It happened, the writer says, when the face of his friend was torn apart by shrapnel as the place where they were hiding came under fire. The writer had to collect the remnants of that face. His head was still warm, he says. I looked for the eyes. He found one. The lens was torn. The color was gone. Could he see me in that moment, he says? Was he able to feel me?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: When you read this message, I will be done with words, he says. I will be carrying my Kalashnikov and leaving. Like you, I dream of a more beautiful homeland, he says. But now, I will achieve it in a different way.
(APPLAUSE)
MCEVERS: The next story is a government soldier telling his ex-girlfriend on the phone how he had to kill a little girl. And the final story is a woman who delivers aid to stricken families. She promises a girl, who's father has been tortured to death, that she'll come back for her. But when she does come back, the girl's village has been flattened by the government's artillery.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: The woman is devastated but then swears on all she knows that she will find the girl and that they will dance when Syria is free.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: (Singing in foreign language)
(APPLAUSE)
MCEVERS: A traditional Syrian song breaks the silence.
Christine Luettich(ph), who was in the audience, says as hard as it is to listen to these stories, it's better than sitting back and digesting the daily news out of Syria.
CHRISTINE LUETTICH: We have the information. We read every day. It's been one year and a half. And if you get used to it, you don't feel anything anymore. And sometimes when you just step back and have like artistic words, and then the whole feelings comes out and you just want to cry. It's a moment where you can just be like a little bit weak. And it's good to be weak sometimes.
MCEVERS: Then it's back downstairs and into the main theater. The big screen shows animated short films and a hilarious finger puppet show that lampoons Syria's president.
It's a nice change from the hot, stifling bunker, a small glimpse of what Syria might feel like one day, a place where people aren't afraid to make art that criticizes the government, a place where people laugh and dance again. Kelly McEvers, NPR News, Beirut. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.