A Grain of Sand – Leeds Playhouse

Writers: Leila Boukarim and Asaf Luzon

Adapter and Director: Elias Matar

Gracefully and elegantly sweeping her arms to create an all-seeing bird swooping across the sky, Sarah Agha’s stories unfold to remember the beauty and joy of Gaza before it was plunged into the horrifying, tragic chaos that we have come to know so vividly.

This verbatim piece has been crafted from the stories of the children of Gaza, collected in 2023 and 2024 and turned into a book the size of a tale by Beatrix Potter and yet the stories by these young people are so far from what children should be reading or experiencing.

A very simple set contains just a large pile of sand, a hard chair and a shabby curtain on which sketchy images are projected.  Upon these grains of sand the stories unfold, told with such colour by Agha, as she uses her vibrant voice and entrancing physicality to inhabit the lives of those little children of Gaza whose experiences are so very hard to hear.

Much of the story is told through the eyes of eleven-year old Renad and Agha gives her gestures and movement which are often lively and even joyful.  She recalls the time ‘before’ and paints so clearly stories of childhood and family – a sister, a brother, mother, father and her beloved Grandmother Sity.  She tells of their family car journeys, where her father is determined to drive and drive for as far as he can, so it comes as a surprised then for her to realise how tiny and limited Gaza is and how big is the world beyond her experience.

A projector gives simple annotations of the story tellers – an age, a time, a girl – and the snippets of experience of bombings and bombardments, snipers and starvation and endless, endless unbearable suffering and loss.  Whilst we never forget that these are children’s stories, Agha resists diminishing them – these are after all – experiences that should only ever be witnessed by adults – and robust ones at that.

Elias Matar, who has written and directed this piece has so carefully blended the verbatim testimonies with Palestinian folklore that they run seamlessly into each other, offering a thread of continuity in a tradition of story telling – something to cling to and bring comfort in the darkest of times.

The moments of light bring some hope and the very fact that these stories are being told at a time when there is no real resolution to the conflict means that the lost generation of Gazan children are not being forgotten.

Runs until 7th February 2026, before continuing on tour