AustLit

'What does it mean to be a good Muslim boy? You probably shouldn’t gawk at girls in bikinis or fake a medical degree. If you must be an actor, you shouldn’t play a gay man on television, or Saddam Hussein in a post 9/11 American musical. And you definitely, definitely shouldn’t leave an arranged bride at the altar.

'Meet Osamah Sami. He’s done all of the above. Interesting, considering his father is one of the leading Islamic clerics in Australia, having pulled his family out of war-torn Iran to settle in suburban Melbourne.

'But when his kindly and unorthodox dad dies suddenly during a trip to Iran, Osamah must grapple with an inscrutable and corrupt bureaucracy in his fight to bring his father’s body home to Australia – all the while looking back on his life in a haunting, hilarious and heart-wrenching retrospective.'

Source: Queensland Theatre Company.

'After seeing its acclaimed debut season at the 2015 Sydney Festival, we were keen to bring Urban Theatre Projects’ The Tribe from the streets of Sydney’s west into our own backyard in Surry Hills. Not figuratively either: it actually is a show for the intimacy of the humble back garden, and that’s where we’ll present it – in an assortment of Surry Hills backyards.

Performed by the inimitable Hazem Shammas (Mother Courage and Her Children, Scorched), this is a story of belonging, told by Bani as a small boy finding his way in a young country by recounting tales of an old country – and at the heart of it all, his love for his grandmother. She’s the core presence in Bani’s life, carrying all the truths of "The Tribe" – a small Muslim sect who fled to Australia from Lebanon. Hazem’s Bani is like a visionary child channelling a Bedouin storyteller – all amongst the Hills Hoists, paling fences, frangipani and jasmine of the Sydney yard. Don’t miss this very special event' (production summary).