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Based on Ghassan Kanafani’s
book, Al-Qandeel Al-Saghir, Al-Fawanees is a musical by Suhail Khoury,
the first ever of such magnitude to debut in Palestine. Kanafani, whose
vision and writings inspired thousands to create and dream, wrote and
illustrated this first children’s novel for his niece Lamees*, for one
of her birthdays.
The Little Lantern
is a story about a king who dies, leaving his only daughter an heiress
to the throne. He leaves his will with the wise man in the castle, which
instructs his daughter that in order to become the queen of the kingdom,
she has to bring the sun into the castle before the candle melts.
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The
princess, being young, thought that she would be able to catch the sun
and carry it on her back to the castle. She tries many ways, but to no
avail. She later locks herself in her room, and on the eighth day, finds
a note under her door, saying that by locking herself in, she will never
find a solution.
The cast is made up of 60 boys and girls aged 9–15 chosen by audition
out of about 500 candidates from schools in Jerusalem, Ramallah and
Bethlehem.
The cast went through seven
training camps with a total of more than 350 hours of training in
singing, acting and dancing. Al-Fawanees is a 70-minute show full of
talent, energy, beautiful music, heavenly voices and breathtaking
stenography. |
