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Jouman Fattal

Biography

We cry at home
I don’t know where my home is
So I don’t cry.

- Jouman Fattal in Terug

Actress and theatre-maker Jouman Fattal (Syria, 1992) is a storyteller through and through, with an energetic, attractive way of performing. She effortlessly switches between storytelling and rap, humour and tragedy. Her topics come straight out of everyday reality: the cares, great and small, of everyday people, seen against the background of the political and social movements of our times.

Fattal’s first Frascati production, Terug (2017), was a personal story of what home is, what happened to ideals and what revolution still means in a devastated country. In this solo show, which she wrote herself, Fattal also played all the roles (her mother, herself, President Bashar Al-Assad and leader of the revolution Abdel Baset Al-Sarout). The production was well received by both press and public.

Fattal's next production was Limbo (Frascati Producties 2018). Together with writer Marijke Schermer, co-maker and actress Nastaran Razawi Khorasani and director Casper Vandeputte, she created an exciting play on how women live and die; a dramatic comedy in which Great Suffering and searing weeping are interspersed with trivialities. A lament becomes a speech; jokes, linguistic confusion and misunderstandings abound in a piece that gravitates between absurdism and activism. 

Jouman Fattal (Syria, 1992) arrived in the Netherlands from Syria with her family at the age of four. Here, she trained as an actor in Utrecht, graduating in 2015. At Frascati Producties, she created Terug and Limbo. She is currently developing her skills as a theatre-maker at Frascati

Alongside her own productions, Fattal has played a large number of roles in the theatre (incl.with Maas, Toneelmakerij and in the coming season with Toneelgroep Maastricht); in films (Gelukszoekers) and television series (incl. Moordvrouw, Project Orpheus and Zuidas). She also regularly comments on political issues, for example as a columnist for vileine and joop.nl, as well as being involved in social projects such as her benefit production Bye Bye Birdie with the Red Cross to support victims in Syria.

Productions

  • Terug (Frascati Producties, 2017)
  • Limbo (Frascati Producties, autumn 2018)

Press

"Breath-taking confrontation with recalcitrant subject-matter."

Theaterkrant on Terug.