March –––– June 2025: 17th edition
20 years on the assassination of Samir Kassir
SPECTACLE – THEATRE
The Last 15 Seconds
Nada Abusaleh, Nada Homsi, Trevor Copp, Badih Abou Chakra, Margaret Bardos
Lebanon, Canada, Syria, Hungary / Creation 2023
A tribute to the late Lebanese Canadian writer and director Majdi Bou-Matar, Founder of the MT Space Company, Canada
Sunday 4 and Monday 5 June 2023, 9:00 pm
Sunflower Theatre, Tayyouneh
In memory of Mustapha Akkad and his daughter Rima killed by a terrorist act in 2005, and in memory of the late Majdi Bou-Matar, theatre artist and founder of MT Space, Canada, through his multinational play.
Based on a true story, The Last 15 Seconds explores the topic of terrorism starting from the tragic death of Syrian-American filmmaker Mustapha Akkad and his daughter Rima during a series of coordinated attacks that hit three prominent hotels in the Jordanian capital Amman in 2005.
Akkad is the director of two major films both starring Anthony Quinn, “The Message: The Story of Islam” (1976) and “Lion of the Desert” (1982). Akkad saw these films as a way to bridge the gap between the Western and Islamic world. He was also the producer of the Halloween film series.
Using movement, dance, video, vocals and text, the work constructs an imagined physical and verbal dialogue between Mustapha Akkad and Rawad Jassem Abed, the suicide bomber who carried out the explosion that killed Akkad. The work also looks at the imagined lives and memories of both the victim and his killer as they revisit each other's lives after their fatal encounter.
Majdi Bou Matar was the founding artistic director of both the MT Space and the IMPACT festival. He has directed and acted in productions in Beirut, Tunisia, Toronto, Vancouver, and White Horse, and his productions at MT Space have included Seasons of Immigration, Yes or NO!, Exit Strategy, and the widely touring and highly acclaimed Body 13, Amal, The Raft, and The Last 15 Seconds, the last of which has toured within Canada and throughout the Middle East for over a decade.
Majdi Bou Matar is a Lebanese theatre director and performer who immigrated to Canada from Lebanon in 2003. He had a particular way of seeing the world.
Through his art, he showcased a vision that could cut between time, distance and culture to bring untold stories to the world. A fierce advocate for the unheard voice, Bou-Matar spent his life as a champion for free expression, speaking truth to power, and turning dreams into reality.
Bou-Matar died suddenly on June 2022 while touring “The Last 15 Seconds” through Hungary. He was 47.
In English with Arabic and French subtitles
Written by The Collective (Ontario, Canada)
Director Majdi Bou-Matar (Lebanon/Canada)
Actors Badih Abouchakra (Lebanon), Nada Humsi (Syria), Pam Patel (Canada), Bo Bardos (Hungary/Canada), Trevor Kopp (Canada)
🕓 1h15
No break
The Last 15 Seconds is timeless. Rarely does a piece of theatre come along that accomplishes so much... It is the ferocious commitment and the skill these five performers bring to the project that involves every aspect of theatre and movement, masterfully shaped and channeled by Bou-Matar's confident and assured direction that impresses...
— John Coulbourn, TORONTO SUN
The events described in The Last 15 Seconds...took place seventeen years ago. But they could be ripped from today's headlines... The Last 15 Seconds is a pulsating, unforgettable piece of theatre that uses dance, video and vocalization to stunning effect...the play meets head-on some of the hugely complex issues raised by such events in the Middle East and elsewhere... Time is short and this is one you have to see...the beauty and truthfulness of its images will linger many years.
— Robert Crew, THE TORONTO STAR
The Last 15 Seconds is a harrowing, gut-wrenching story to be sure, but it is told with such artful elegance and vivid imagination by MT Space Theatre, that it is both compelling and incredibly moving. The cast of five as a whole is terrific. The images ...are breathtaking... This is theatre at its heart squeezing, compelling best.
— Lynn Slotkin, The Passionate Playgoer, Toronto
The Last 15 Seconds is a feast of innovation. Bou-Matar evokes gloom with ironic hilarity... The performers prove themselves incredibly versatile...this is an important work that could promote a desperately needed dialogue.
— Marsha Lederman, The Globe and Mail, Vancouver
...stunning multicultural piece of physical theatre from a Kitchener-Waterloo group that should definitely not stay in Kitchener-Waterloo. It is the type of show that honors its genre as well as its young co-creators while daring to confront the subject of terrorism...
— Keith Garebian, StageandPage.com
This mystery of temporal passage and ourselves in it is accomplished with theatrical invention of astounding mastery, and its creators spare us no respite from intellectual and emotional involvement, until at the end we are overwhelmed to find that nearly ninety minutes of our lives have been spent.
— Tom Mackan, Burlington
MT Space was created to centralize marginalized and racialized artists and stories, to fill what seems to be a great void in a community of many different peoples.
MT Space (Multicultural Theatre Space) was founded in 2004 by Lebanese Canadian Majdi Bou-Matar, who was a trained director, actor, and dancer. Majdi relocated to Canada when his wife was accepted to University of Waterloo to pursue a PhD.
For the past seventeen years, MT Space has been fulfilling its mandate by creating, producing, touring, and presenting artistic work that reflects Canada’s cultural diversity. Since 2004, MT Space has become a conduit for internationally trained immigrants and newcomer professionals across all disciplines. In July 2016, Pam Patel – who had been an artistic associate with MT Space since 2008 and mentored with Majdi – stepped into the role of Artistic Director and looks forward to ushering the organization into its next decade of powerful artistic work, bringing with her a South Asian background and Canadian upbringing.
MT Space challenges the definition of theatre to include all disciplines such as dance, music, multimedia, and circus performing arts. As such, MT Space is becoming a presenter of artists and arts organizations across many disciplines.
More info on: https://mtspace.ca/
A Tribute to Majdi
Welcome everybody to the opening night the 15th Edition of the Beirut Spring Festival, where we pay a tribute to Majdi Bou-Matar.
Majdi is a theatre director and performer who immigrated to Canada from Lebanon in 2003. He holds an MA degree in Drama from the University of Guelph with research focus on Canadian intercultural theatre, a BA degree in directing from the Lebanese American University and BA Honours in theatre studies from the Lebanese University.
Majdi directed several productions in Beirut and was a key participant in several theatre, television, and film projects in the Middle East and Tunisia. Majdi represented his country of origin in the Afro-Arab Centre for Theatrical Research in Tunis.
An active member of the Waterloo Region arts community, Majdi founded The Multicultural Theatre Space (MT Space) in 2004.
His work continues to tour nationally and internationally. Majdi is the founding Artistic Director of IMPACT, an international theatre festival in the Waterloo Region. In 2017, Majdi was named Presenter of the Year by the Canadian Association for the Performing Arts.
The Beirut Spring Festival invited him and the Tunisian co-director Cyrinne Gannoun with their very sucessful play “The Raft” in 2019, where he expressed his great joy to return to Beirut with this performance after 10 years of absence.
Majdi died one year ago, at the age of 47.
For the 15th Edition, the Beirut Spring Festival insisted to give him a tribute in his country of origin, and we invited MT Space group to present his play “The last 15 seconds”.
Thanks to the Embassy of Canada to Lebanon for their support.
Before the performance, we will watch a short video where Majdi presents a poem to Beirut, during the opening of the first edition of the Impact festival in 2009.
Media Coverage
The Beirut Spring Festival is a free of charge annual arts and culture programming that celebrates freedom and renewal in Beirut, in memory of Samir Kassir.
All Rights Reserved, Beirut Spring Festival.