Mansour Rahbani’s Christ is a savior who does not save.

Creativity and freedom are two sides of the same coin in the theater of the Rahbani Brothers. For them, creativity was never merely about innovation, but rather the ability to liberate—to free people from constraints. Anything short of that becomes rumination, repetition of the old, or recycling the narrative. The power of their plays was never simply about audiovisual aesthetics, nor the formidable harmony between acting and music, between the word and the melody, but rather about being a project for liberation and the rebuilding of human consciousness.

This project manifests clearly in the play The Last Days of Socrates (1998). Mansour did not approach Socrates as a monument in Athens, nor as a mere historical figure; rather, he managed to liberate him from his historical estrangement, turning him into a twentieth-century Arab citizen who carries the concerns and struggles of the contemporary Lebanese and Arab individual. Thus, the Socrates who refused to flee to Egypt was brought over and naturalized by Mansour, who shifted Socrates’s battle from the streets of Athens into the heart of Arab Eastern geography, without this relocation becoming a dramatic burden or weight. The trial of Socrates was transformed from a bygone historical conflict against the democrats of Greece into a struggle against tyranny and the subjugation of minds within Eastern geography, and Socrates was sentenced to death in Lebanon once again.

As for the second, deeper act of creativity, Mansour simplified the philosopher; he humanized philosophy and shattered its condescension, turning it into an everyday language spoken by the peasant, the porter, and the politician, liberating it from the elite so it could become daily bread for the common people. Through this, he managed to liberate philosophy and the philosopher, thereby liberating the human being who watches. Socrates transformed from a historical figure into a living persona; Mansour’s Socrates is alive, present here and now. He is no longer a Greek in Athens; for Socrates, who refused to go to Egypt, was brought by Mansour to Lebanon, freed from the borders, society, and traditions of Athens. On Mansour’s stage, Socrates was free: he danced on the stage, drank wine, fought with his wife, and released a wild goat, all because Mansour’s pen was free, unbound by the weight of history or the awe of philosophy.

In contrast, the play And on the Third Day He Rose (2000) arrived to embody the fracture of this freedom. In recounting the final days of Jesus Christ’s life, Mansour’s pen suffocated. I believe Mansour tore up many papers before completing his work, for he hesitated before the “Sacred,” and theological awe constrained the writer’s creativity. He approached the character of Jesus as a sacred, protected, untouchable figure, where any attempt to draw near is threatened with condemnation or theological anathema. Therefore, despite all its audiovisual aesthetics, the work remained dry—a repetition of a text written two thousand years ago within the format of a musical, dance spectacle. Yet in the absence of meaning, audiovisual staging turns into a dry, superficial shell.

The character of Jesus remained a sacred figure imprisoned between the leaves of books and sermons, never touching reality. The story of Christ was handled as a prefabricated tale within an immutable mold, and this mold built a prison that bound Mansour’s pen. As Basha Obeidou states: “It remained a prisoner to the power of the biography, which was reduced here until it appeared as a purely moral biography, reproducing the prevailing and commonplace narrative about Jesus Christ through oversimplified methods rather than simplicity.”[1] He was unable to recreate the tale; instead, it remained a bedtime story told to put a child to sleep. Doubtless, his pen attempted to return to its true nature several times in the text, as seen in Jesus’s words: “I die for people I do not know. Death is not what matters; resurrection is what matters. For faith liberates and leads to freedom.” Yet this explosion remained stifled and trapped within a sermon, and Christ appeared as a preacher even at the height of his revolution when he drove the merchants out of the temple.

Paradoxically, the suppressed creativity regarding the character of Jesus unleashed other characters and liberated them to a great extent—especially the character of Judas, who posed numerous questions. Judas’s profound questions were met with no convincing answer from the character of Christ or his disciples. In the dialogue scene between Judas and Christ concerning revolution and liberation, Judas asks him: “Whoever slaps you on your right cheek, and bless those who curse you, and love your enemies… It is as if you were sent from Rome to defuse the revolution. This is talk that cannot be fulfilled.” Jesus replies: “If grace enters into you, it will be fulfilled.” Judas responds: “This is humiliation. I cannot refrain from returning the strike. What you are asking, Teacher, is beyond human capability.” Jesus replies: “When the Son of Man became flesh, He gave you of Himself and took from you; now you are able to.” Then, Judas’s words hit a massive wall when Jesus tells him: “Judas, tend to what you want to do,” and then repeats, “Do what you feel you want to do.” Christ appears here as though he is pushing Judas to hand him over in order to fulfill the prophecy. Mansour’s Christ came to die according to an orchestrated script; thus, Judas fell victim to a pre-arranged scenario and divine destiny, leading the pen to re-shackle the very character it had nearly liberated.

Rahbani creativity freed Socrates from Athens, but it became bound before the Temple. With Socrates, Mansour excelled in retelling his story; whereas in the play about Christ, the writer’s freedom collided with the sacred and its awe. He sacrificed creativity in favor of the text, leaving the performance as merely a lavish echo of a text he did not dare rewrite, when the Passion narrative on the stage could have been the pinnacle of human liberation.

The monumental question remains: Why did Rahbani creativity hit the wall of awe and fail to tear it down? This question confronts any project of liberation with a shocking reality: no matter how grand it is, it collides forcefully with the wall of awe. So how can this wall be torn down—a wall whose collapse would mean the liberation of the mind?

References

Zoghaib, Henri. “146: … And on the Third Day He Rose.” Henri Zoghaib’s Website. May 5, 2000. Accessed September 25, 2026. At: https://www.henrizoghaib.com/146-%D9%88%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%85-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%88%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AB%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AB/