At the Dawn of Existence: Aspects of Liminality in Sulayman Al Bassam’s Petrol Station

Abstract

This article explores the temporal and the spatial aspects of liminality in Sulayman Al Bassam’s play, Petrol Station (2017). Drawing on the theory of liminality, the paper investigates how liminality informed characterization, identity formation, the evasive concept of truth, and the characters’ absurd existence in Al Bassam’s work. It also shows how the author skillfully projects the liminality of geographical locations on the erratic boundaries between the personal and the collective, the literal and the symbolic, identity and loss of identity, faith and atheism, order and chaos, meaning and futility, tragedy and humor, and life and death. Accordingly, the play provides a proficient dramatization of how geographical liminality directly affects subjectivity and creates an apt environment where liminal identities can develop. The article concludes that the characters who managed to overcome their in-betweeness in the play achieved this through their individual determination to transcend the different aspects of liminality.