Rabih Mroué


Rabih Mroué is a Lebanese stage and film actor, playwright, and visual artist. Rooted in theater, his work includes videos and installation art; the latter sometimes incorporates photography, text and sculpture.

Biography

Born in Beirut, Mroué lives in Hazmieh, Lebanon. He is a grandson of Husayn Muruwwa. He graduated in theater in 1989 from Lebanese University, where he met his wife, Lina Saneh.
He has been creating theater pieces since 1990. Theater in Beirut revived in the years after the Lebanese Civil War, but Mroué and Saneh, who frequently collaborate, were among the first to push into avant-garde territory, using venues such as the Russian Cultural Center, makeshift halls, and private homes. His works since the late 1990s "blur and confound the boundaries between theater and the visual arts", often using screens and projected images. Writing in the New York Times about Mroué's theater group, Kaelen Wilson-Goldie commented that "they are to Beirut what the Wooster Group is to New York: a blend of avant-garde innovation, conceptual complexity and political urgency, all grounded in earthy humor."
Mroué's performances, although scripted, are designed to appear more like improvised works in progress, reflecting his continuing theme of inquiry, focused more on provoking thought than presenting spectacle. Mroué has written of his own work, "My works deal with issues that have been swept under the table in the current political climate of Lebanon,"
Mroué's 2007 piece about the Lebanese Civil War, How Nancy Wished That Everything Was an April Fool's Joke, toured internationally. Banned domestically by the Lebanese Interior Ministry, it premiered in Tokyo. The ban was eventually lifted. In 2012, a series of photographs made with mobile phones at Homs, Syria showed persons killed during the fights of 2011/2012. Copies of the photographs were shown at dOCUMENTA at Kassel, Germany with the title Pixelated Revolution.
Mroué is a board member of the Beirut Art Center.

Awards

Theater pieces