Introducing the New Gaza Monologues by ASHTAR Theatre

This editorial introduction frames ASHTAR Theatre’s New Gaza Monologues not as theatrical texts to be interpreted, but as testimonies to be encountered through an ethics of listening and witnessing. Written by young people in Gaza amidst ongoing violence, displacement and loss, the monologues challenge conventional distinctions between performance, documentation and lived experience. The introduction invites readers to engage with these voices without reducing them to representation or explanation, and instead to remain attuned to their urgency, vulnerability and political significance. Situating the collection within ASHTAR Theatre’s broader mission and the ethical concerns of Performing Ethos , the text proposes witnessing as a performative act of relation and responsibility. Rather than offering resolution or distance, the New Gaza Monologues call upon readers to acknowledge their implication in a shared human condition and to carry these testimonies beyond the page as an ongoing ethical commitment.