Al Wa7esh brings Carole Abboud and Dory Al Samarany face to face on the stage of Théâtre Le Monnot
Beirut, May 12, 2026 — When a writer of John Patrick Shanley’s stature turns his attention to a Lebanese stage production, the gesture carries weight far beyond a simple social media post.
The Academy Award-winning American playwright, screenwriter and director, also a Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, has been actively involved in the promotion of “Al Wa7esh”, the Lebanese adaptation of his celebrated play “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea”, on his official social media pages, bringing international attention to the production directed by Lebanese theatre-maker Jacques Maroun, opening at Théâtre Monnot on May 21.
For Shanley’s worldwide audience, the title needs little introduction. The writer behind the Oscar-winning screenplay of Moonstruck, and the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play Doubt, remains one of the defining voices of contemporary American theatre and cinema. His work is known for its emotional intensity, moral tension, and raw, deeply human characters, qualities that have made Danny and the Deep Blue Sea one of his most enduring plays.
In that sense, Shanley’s public support for “Al Wa7esh” is not merely a casual endorsement. It is a meaningful acknowledgment of a Lebanese theatrical experience that does not treat the original text as a literal translation or a conventional revival, but as a living local interpretation, intimate, direct, and rooted in the emotional language of the Lebanese audience.
“Al Wa7esh” or Danny and the Deep Blue Sea tells the story of two wounded outsiders who meet one night in an empty bar, each searching for a measure of peace. At first, their encounter is tense, defensive, and charged with harsh words. But slowly, something begins to shift between them. Out of pain, fear, and loneliness, a fragile human connection emerges, perhaps even the beginning of a wild, impossible love born in the dark.
Maroun first presented the production in 2019 at his own artistic workshop, with plans to later move it to a larger theatre, for a large audience. But Lebanon’s unfolding crisis abruptly interrupted the performances. Today, he returns with his theatre troupe to bring this story back to the stage, offering Lebanese audiences a work that is at once fierce and tender, brutal and intimate — a play about human fragility when two people are left alone with their wounds.
Written by John Patrick Shanley, translated by Arze Khodr, and directed by Jacques Maroun, the production stars Carole Abboud and Dory Al Samarany.
With the return of “Al Wa7esh”, to the stage, Jacques Maroun not only revives a world-renowned play, but also grants it a new life, in Beirut, at a moment when the need for theatre — and for stories that reveal humanity in its utmost weakness and strength — feels more urgent than ever before.