A Line in the Sand

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In the autumn of 1990, during Operation Desert Storm, two young men, one a troubled Canadian soldier, the other a teenage Palestinian black-marketeer, meet in the scorched Qatari desert. Breaching the divide of a profound cultural misunderstanding and against a backdrop of massive global conflict, these two become unlikely and secret friends. This tenuous friendship is severed by the torture and murder of the 16-year-old Palestinian inside the Canadian base—an act to which the Canadian soldier was at least a witness and perhaps a willing participant.

Weaving poetic drama with myriad documentary sources, A Line in the Sand rips the benevolent mask off recent western peacekeeping operations and challenges Canada’s long treasured national mythology that it is a nation of quiet diplomats. It asks us to imagine how horrors like these could be perpetrated with our money, in our name and by people much like us.

Cast of 3 to 5 men.

AUTHOR

Guillermo Verdecchia

Guillermo Verdecchia is a writer of drama, fiction, and film; a director, dramaturge, actor, and translator whose work has been seen and heard on stages, screens, and radios across the country and around the globe. The author, or co-author, of, among other works, The Noam Chomsky Lectures and Insomnia (with Daniel Brooks); Fronteras Americanas, The Terrible but Incomplete Journals of John D., bloom; A Line in the Sand (with Marcus Youssef), and the controversial Adventures of Ali and Ali and the aXes of Evil (with Camyar Chai and Marcus Youssef). He is a recipient of the Governor General’s Award for Drama, a four-time winner of the Chalmers Canadian Play Award, a recipient of Dora and Jessie Awards, and sundry film festival awards for his film Crucero/Crossroads, based on Fronteras Americanas and made with Ramiro Puerta. He lives in Toronto with Tamsin Kelsey, his partner of many years, and their two children.

Reviews

“Mesmerizing … compelling and ambiguous … Verdecchia and Youssef pull off the tricky task of crafting a complex interpersonal drama that is also a potent allegory. … A reference to the then-recent Oka crisis creates provocative parallels between the Israel/Palestine divide and the ongoing effects of North American colonization. … [In 2016] A Line in the Sand inarguably remains relevant. Given its content, it seems likely that Verdecchia and Youssef will celebrate the day when this play doesn’t need another revival.”
– Toronto Star

“Verdecchia and Youssef pull off the tricky task of crafting a complex interpersonal drama that is also a potent allegory.”
– Toronto Star

Winner of 3 MECCA Awards (2009-2010)
Winner of the 1997 Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award