He Who Saw Everything
“It seems to me that all he is asking for is intensity, a more heightened form of feeling and living. Is he trying to remind us that it was during the Plague that so many marvelous works of art and theater came to be, because, whipped by the fear of death, man seeks immortality, or to escape, or to surpass himself?”
(Anaïs Nin on Antonin Artaud)
"He Who Saw Everything", is a theater investigation on death, the value of life and new forms of quests for immortality in contemporary societies. The performance originates from a need to address currently emerging paradigms, which are defining our relationships to human life and the new values attached to the body. As theater makers, death is predominant in our work as it allows us to mirror and question the world we live in. Being from a part of the world where people are constantly experiencing a “heightened form of feeling and living”, since the possibility of violent death is imminent; the question of immortality is ever-present. At an age when mass death is used as a tool of media leverage between fighting factions, has the simple non-heroic or non-epic death of the individual been demystified?
Presentation dates and locations:
"He Who Saw Everything", was performed as a work-in-progress during Zoukak’s residency at the Battersea Arts Center (London) in June 2014, as part of the LIFT festival. In January 2015 it was performed in Monnot Theater in Beirut and at the International Theater Festival of Kerala (ITFOK), India. In October 2016 it was performed at the Cairo International Festival for Contemporary and Experimental Theater.

Conceived by: Zoukak Theatre Company
Directed by: Omar Abi Azar and Maya Zbib
Devised by: Lamia Abi Azar, Omar Abi Azar, Hashem Adnan, Chrystèle Khodr, Junaid Sarieddeen, Maya Zbib and Nathalie Harb
Performed by: Lamia Abi Azar, Hashem Adnan, Christèle Khodr, Junaid Sarieddeen and Maya Zbib - also on stage: Nathalie Harb, Joseph Kai and Tamara Saade
Live music: Hadi Deabes
Scenography: Nathalie Harb
Illustrator: Joseph Kai
Costume design: Beatrice Harb
Assistant director: Tamara Saade
Light design: Nadim Deaibes
Production Manager: Mohamad Hamdan
Communication: Be-Kult
Produced by: Zoukak
Supported by: AFAC and the British Council and the LIFT Festival