Fever Chart
Three visions of the Middle East by Naomi Wallace
A strikingly timely performance directed by Tatiana Ligari

This year, Tatiana Ligari presents a profoundly timely theatrical work at the Wagon Theater, directing the main production of the Railway Carriage Theater to Treno sto Rouf for the current theatrical season.

The play Fever Chart-Three visions of the Middle East, by the award-winning American playwright and poet Naomi Wallace) is a captivating triptych of stories based on real events. It explores the universal themes of love, loss, and death in the face of extreme conditions.

Seven characters from Palestine, Israel, and Iraq seek connection amid war and conflict. In her three short, feverish “visions,” Wallace turns her gaze to the relentless reality of the Middle East.

In the first vision, titled “State of Innocence,” a ruined zoo in Rafah becomes the meeting ground for three seemingly strangers: a Palestinian mother, an Israeli soldier, and a Russian-Jewish architect. Past, present, and future unfold simultaneously.

In the second vision, titled “A Breath Between Us,” a Palestinian father and an Israeli nurse meet in a private clinic in West Jerusalem, seeking the very essence of life. The comic appearance of an Arab-Jewish doorman confirms that the other side of darkness is always the full light.

In the third vision, “The World That Recedes,” a young Iraqi prepares his lecture for the International Pigeon Conference in Baghdad, the isolated Iraqi capital under Saddam Hussein following the Gulf War. The blending of dream and reality opens a window of reconnection with those who have been lost.

Three real stories of loss,
three feverish visions of what it means to be human.

Teetering between realism and dream, using a language both contemporary and deeply poetic—not coincidentally borrowing the play’s title from a line by T.S. Eliot—the activist playwright, one of the most distinctive voices of contemporary American theatre, engages with History. With profound symbolism, lyricism, and touches of surrealism, she traverses political conflicts, illuminates the human side of events, and maintains faith in the power of life.

In a world addicted to and incapable of reacting to the sight of barbarity, Treno sto Rouf and Tatiana Ligari present a gripping performance-journey in the shadow of History, focused on humanity, and carrying alive the wish and hope for a better world.