Bar by bar, night by night, story by story, onward! departs from Allah 99, Hassan Blasim's cheeky debut novel in which a writer travels the world to collect the stories of 99 people from the Middle East: a DJ who used to work as a doctor in a Syrian hospital during the ISIS occupation, a man making money by selling dead flies, an Iraqi cab driver who can't stop crying while collecting all kind of illnesses.

From the Youtube Man to Ali Transistor: in every story the real is in the surreal, the banal in the tragic. It’s only one step between getting drunk, a blowjob and a car bomb. What is appearance, what is authentic? It is precisely this boundary that Enkidu explores in a scheherazade-like story marathon, in which three performers and a DJ try to get into the head and skin of the novel characters.  

Enkidu Khaled lives in both the Middle Eastern and the European world. He uses the theater to tell stories that challenge the clichés and fantasies that both worlds have about each other. Bar by bar, night by night, story by story, onward! starts from a fascination for contemporary storytelling as a tool to get a grip on a fragmented world.

By and with Sara Dziri, Nele Vereecken, Joachim Robbrecht, Stan Wannet, Dhyaa Joda, Wouter Hillaert, Enkidu Khaled 
lightdesign  Luc Schaltin 
technique Nele Verreyken 
outside eye Myriam Van Imschoot 
based on the novel by Hassan Blasim 
with thanks to Lisa Skwirblies

production Platform 0090 
coproduction Productiehuis Theater Rotterdam, C-Takt, KAAItheater, de Brakke Grond, Kultuurfactorij Monty, Kaap, Moussem Nomadic Arts Center, Het Laatste Bedrijf 
with thanks to Uitgeverij Jurgen Maas 
with the support of Kunstencentrum BUDA, Workspacebrussels, De Markten, the Flemish Community, the City of Antwerp, Tax Shelter measure of the Belgian Federal Government and Gallop Tax Shelter