” ةِ مكسورة …Ta Maksoura…” The Play
Murielle’s Rage: From Beauvoir’s pages to the stage
When asked about the play’s essence, Dania described it as more than performance:
“ةِ مكسورة …Ta Maksoura” is not merely a play—it’s an existential earthquake for one woman, voiced through the body and soul of millions who endure similar suffering in silence.
It’s an adaptation from Simone de Beauvoir’s novel A Woman Destroyed, a French philosopher best known for her writings on women, with her book “The Second Sex” a detailed analysis of women’s oppression and a foundational text for contemporary feminism.
Dania explained that the protagonist, Murielle, embodies this oppression—but she shatters her silence through a monologue that becomes an act of revenge against traditions, human relationships, and the entire social system. As Gustave Flaubert once wrote: “She took revenge through monologue.”
- How a College Project Became Her Freedom Manifesto:
A sharp, knowing smile crossed her face, the smile of someone who had danced with demons on stage and won—before she delved into the answer.
What began as a university experiment became a crucible. Beauvoir’s text met her burgeoning courage, and the stage amplified both. She adapted Beauvoir’s brutally honest narrative to match her own courage at the time, but after opening night, that courage grew. The stage freed her to confront more “taboos” Beauvoir had exposed, transforming confession into liberation. Where she gave him a new skin that is not afraid to speak out.
Dania confessed: “Murielle’s monologue wasn’t on paper anymore; it crawled under my skin. I stopped ‘performing’ and started bleeding on stage.”
She chose this text out of her belief that true art is born in unsafe spaces: where vulnerability becomes aesthetic strength, where the body and voice channel rage and freedom rather than tears. This script dragged her from safe spaces to war zones; the character’s pain, when exposed, turned into her liberation…
She concluded: “Sometimes power lies in solitude. Every woman must take that first step towards freedom… because on the other side, life awaits you.”
- Directing the Unspoken
Explaining her directorial vision, Dania leaned forward with focused intensity, saying that Murielle no longer languishes in her cramped apartment on New Year’s Eve, tormented by noisy neighbors and street chaos. She relocated her to a mental asylum—her isolation crystallized in a bed and a cordless phone (a metaphor for her need for connection). Her psychological state develops with the progression of events and the dramatic line that she drew for herself.
Her “wait for visitors who never came” turns the asylum into both prison and truth’s stage.
She said:
Beauvoir’s heroine, Murielle, ceased to be fiction; “She became our next-door patient, right there on the theater stage.”
We’re all patients here, but only some of us speak.
- Her Personal Journey [The Soloist’s Paradox] Holding a Thousand Heartbeats
When we asked Dania about her personal journey, she leaned in closely and said that she enjoyed this experience very much, especially since she was the first to play this unstaged text by Beauvoir on a Lebanese stage and to deliver it to the people, alone on stage for no less than 35 minutes.
A solo performance where she lived as Murielle, pulse synced to the audience’s breath. Her body became an open book, narrating every Lebanese woman’s silent struggle.
Yet she rejects Murielle’s fate. Like the phoenix, she believes Lebanese women rise from ashes—stronger and brighter.
- 35 Minutes of Pure Pressure: “What They Don’t See Behind the Curtain”
When we asked her about the pressure and challenges she had to face, Dania met the question about pressure with a lifted chin and said:
“Carrying the entire weight—adaptation, direction, acting, was grueling, especially during repeated emotional breakdown scenes.”
A hollow look briefly entered her eyes. “Some scenes didn’t feel like acting. They felt like tearing open a wound again and again, and trusting the audience not to look away.”
Then she confessed:
“I had to stand firm in all circumstances, in the face of all obstacles, because if I fell, the entire play fall with me. Every second was a high-wire act.”
In addition, she sent a special thanks to the management of the Sunflower Theater for giving her enough days to rehearse without any costs, in light of the difficult economic situation, and the inability to find other places at reasonable costs.
She also credited her supervisor, Dr. Gabriel Yamin, for guiding her patiently.
“A Grateful Message, To Her Sacred Witness, the Keeper of Her Unwritten Chapters”:
She paused, choosing her next words with the care of someone touching a holy relic. Her gratitude was a quiet, powerful force, and she said:
To You….. you are the only person who can read the name, because some stories are kept behind the scenes, and in my heart forever:
You didn’t just show me the path, you inspired me to claw my own.
When others doubted, you bet on my success.
You read me like an open book, while others skimmed without understanding.
You kept holding up the mirror until I saw myself through your eyes.
Thank you…
“You gave me small eternities—and for that, I’m forever grateful.”
- Epilogue: Masks Removed
Dania ended not with a conclusion, but a provocation, her voice shifting from the past’s pain to the future’s rebellion.
“ةِ مكسورة , Ta Maksoura…” was her theatrical firstborn. She poured into it unspoken fragments of herself—and of countless others gnawed at by hidden wounds that will keep gnawing at us forever, if we don’t talk about it. She shattered countless taboos, and she stood transformed as the curtain fell, lighter and freer.
Now she sets tragedy aside to write comedy, not to mock pain, but to pull the rug from under its feet. After all, laughter is an act of rebellion against despair.
None of this would’ve happened without stripping away masks, hers and the character’s. So she asks you: Which mask will you remove to set yourself free?
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