There’s a theatre in the village of Majdal Shams. It’s just a short walk from the family home Ebla Mari grew up in. It’s where she learned piano, and saw her first live theatre, too. In 2014, it was on its stage, racked with blinding stage-fright, that she first acted in front of an audience. Without the Oyoun theatre, Mari isn’t sure where she’d be today. She doubts she would be working as a drama teacher at a local middle school, a job which she loves. Certainly, she wouldn’t be on our Zoom call. Because it’s this theatre, the 26-year-old believes, that set her on a path that led her to being discovered by Ken Loach and starring in his upcoming, and likely final, feature film – The Old Oak – due for release this month internationally. Today, the theatre is on her mind again.
“Every time I stepped foot inside it,” she says, “I’d feel things. At first it was personal – I’m shy, and had this feeling that drama could free me from myself. Then I realised it was bigger than me: a way for our voices to be heard. It was somewhere to express ourselves, and to explore the struggles we face. For us here, that’s particularly important.” Nestled in the foothills of Mount Hermon, Majdal Shams is in the Golan Heights, an area to the northeast of Israel and the southwest of Syria. Since 1967, it’s been under Israeli military occupation. Today, it’s one of only five Druze villages that remain in the region. Before the annexation, there were hundreds.
Through her childhood, Mari could see into Syria from her bedroom window, but her community was, and remains, cut off from the rest of the country. The town’s population was just 11,000, and the Oyoun theatre was its major cultural hub. Others simply weren’t accessible. “It was a place,” she says, “to tell stories from our community.” When the Syrian civil war began in 2011, the Golan Heights wasn’t directly affected by the fighting. “I’ve been hearing bombs for the past 10 years – sometimes, mortars land here by mistake – and I have family and friends who live across the border. But physically, we were sheltered from it.”
A few years after the outbreak of the war, however, the theatre’s doors shut. “We might have not faced the violence of the war,” she explains, “but culturally, there have been consequences. Some supported the regime in Syria, others were opposed. We are Druze, so many kept silent in the hope of protecting Druze people across the border.” It left the village split. “Cultural spaces closed. We became divided. So the theatre – a place which once pulled us together – closed down. I know how important a place it was for me; what it would mean for many of my pupils. One day soon, I hope it will be filled with life again.”
We’re speaking late in the school holidays. Mari is at home, soaking in the final few days of peace before pupils return to the chaos of the classrooms. “I’m reading, crocheting and relaxing as much as I can,” she says. “To be honest, I’ve not even left the house today.” Mari has arranged with her school, however, her break will extend a few extra weeks so she can travel to the UK for The Old Oak’s premiere, and for some promotional engagements. There are nervous smiles, but she seems excited.
At first, she was reluctant to share all these details with her students. “My classes are seventh to ninth grade,” Mari says. “It’s the age when young people start to express themselves properly. I don’t really speak about personal things. But they know a little now. In my village, everyone found out after Cannes.”
The film debuted at the festival back in March and received a standing ovation. It was the first time Mari saw the final edit. “Suddenly it was all over Facebook,” she explains, “so after the screening, everyone in the village was talking about it. Now the kids come up to me when they see me and ask, excitedly, if I’m a film star.” She smiles. “So, yes, now they know, although I didn’t say anything.”
For all the conflicts that have shaped the place Mari calls home, she wants to make clear it has never lost its beauty. “We’re very close to nature,” she says. “Most of our older generation are farmers, so there are fields of cherries and apples; a lake nearby. We’re a small, tight-knit community.” She’s the oldest of four children. Her mother is a painter; her uncles artists, too. The occupation happened decades before Mari was born. The checkpoints have long been taken down. Israeli settlers have built their own communities nearby. “But my village remembers what happened,” Mari says. “Every few years, tensions rise and there are clashes. As you come here, you drive past destroyed Syrian villages. You can’t escape the politics and the scenes of war.”
After finishing high school, she studied at university in the Israeli city of Haifa, a couple of hours’ drive away. “Honestly,” she says of the experience, “it wasn’t easy. I felt I didn’t really belong. We studied in Hebrew, not in Arabic. I faced a lot of racism and prejudice, too, from people who’d decided who and what I was before they’d taken a second to know me.” Through theatre, however, she found ways to build bridges and expose others there to her experiences. Soon after graduating, she started teaching.
In late 2021, Loach came calling. He had set out to find an actor to take on a leading role in The Old Oak, a film about Syrian refugees living in Britain. Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir was one of those assisting him. She helped put Mari in touch. A quick Zoom meeting was followed by a full digital audition.
“I thought it went badly,” Mari says, bashfully. “I could read and write English, but I wasn’t confident speaking. That audition was the first time I’d acted in English.” Still, something must have gone right: soon she’d been flown to England for a final audition in person. She’d travelled to Europe before, but this was her first visit to the UK. She was cast immediately afterwards.
In those early stages, Mari knew little of The Old Oak’s plot. “When I learned I was to play a Syrian refugee,” she explains, “I felt quite guilty – I’m not one. Yes, I can relate to the experience of being separated from your identity, culture and people.” She suggested they cast an actor from Syria instead. “But they said I had the empathy and imagination to play the part. And the situation is close to me, emotionally and physically. It just felt a lot to take on. But I believe in the story.”
For the whole of Mari’s lifetime, the Golan Heights has been occupied by Israel, therefore cut off from those affected across the border. “I’d never met Syrians displaced by the conflict,” she says, “despite the fact that I live so close. In fact, I’d never really met Syrians from there at all.” Before shooting on The Old Oak kicked off, she did her own research into what a young Syrian seeking safety in Britain might have lived through.
But it was the two weeks she spent in England in the run-up to filming kicking off that really shaped her performance. “My on-screen family are all actual Syrian refugees living in England,” Mari says, “none of them were actors. I spent time with them in their homes, hearing their stories. This was far more important than any article I read. I got to know them: the physical and emotional scars the war – and being displaced – inflicted.”
“We also talked about life as a refugee in Britain,” she continues. “I felt their pain – so disconnected from home and their lives from before. Their isolation. They talked about the racism and discrimination they’ve faced in the UK: bullying in school, physical assaults, being told to go home, passersby spitting on the ground next to them. It was painful to hear these stories of continued suffering.” They also talked of the generosity and kindness they’d received in the UK from total strangers. It’s this tension the film draws into focus.
The Old Oak centres on a pub in the northeast, the last one standing, in a community that’s fallen on hard times after 30 years of decline. It’s the only remaining public space where people can meet in a once thriving area. When Syrian refugees are housed nearby, the pub becomes contested territory. Mari plays Yara, who strikes up an unlikely friendship with landlord TJ Ballantyne (played by Dave Turner). Together, they search for ways to help these two communities better understand each other. In true Loach style, the film shines a light on British inequality and injustice.
There was a two-week break between most filming finishing and the final scene. With time to spare, Mari travelled in England a little. “I went to York,” she says, “and saw a march for refugee rights in the streets. I stood and watched and thought: ‘It’s amazing.’” Right away, she joined it. “As we marched, I realised there was another side. A group of people shouting: ‘Go home. We don’t want you here.’
Just a few weeks earlier, we’d acted out scenes similar to that. But seeing it with my own eyes was the first time I saw and understood what it must actually be like to face that hatred. Now when I hear about all the things happening to refugees in the UK, it’s very sad. It has made me believe in this power of theatre and art even more; to challenge people’s prejudices.”
For two years, the film has consumed Mari’s time. With its release so close, she’s thinking about what happens next. “I know I will continue to teach,” she says, “but I’d also like to try to build something. To start a production company, through which I can direct and write. It’ll be a way to tell the stories of this community.” She has no intention of moving anywhere. “I want to work in my village. With my people. To see our theatre open once again… Don’t get me wrong, though,” she’s quick to add. “I’m very happy to be cast in other films. Theatre, of course. Or television. I’m ready to travel. It’s just, well, I’ll always want to come back here.”
The Old Oak is in cinemas from 29 September
