From the second the lights dimmed down I was totally emerged in the play ‘I Am Yusuf and This Is My Brother’, written and directed by Amir Nizar Zuabi.

Having grown up with the ever-constant headlines of the Israel/Palestine conflict, I thought I had a fairly good grasp of this ongoing battle, but this play educated me without once preaching or crossing into religious debate.

Through detailing deeply personal experiences, Zuabi expresses the facts of the trauma and struggle his forefathers experienced during the disasters following the ending of the British mandate in Palestine, in May 1948. The play follows two brothers, one with a strong, older-sibling character – Ali, and one known as the village fool, Yusuf.

Without the context of the play, taking place in Nakba of 1948, you could easily mistake it for the story of two star-crossed lovers unable to be together because of differences in family status – Ali being from a family that houses the village fool, while Nada’s father is a prestigious figure (later found to be a collaborator with the Israelis), but instead one is made to relate to the emotional turmoil of a sibling relationship and the frustration of love through the British withdrawal and the Palestinian-Israeli war that follows.

I think that this is where the power of this play lies; Zuabi doesn’t keep our attention through gore and violent action, but through deep emotion, using simple but pungent imagery in his play – four ghosts of death that waft in and out of the play reciting Arabic, words of beauty and sorrow that echo through you.

Zuabi told the Guardian how he doubted the difference his play would make, "I have to believe it does affect people," he says. "On the other level, I'm not daft. I know I can't change the reality. I can't make a show and tomorrow everyone will walk hand-in-hand."

Yes, a play cannot change reality, but this play definitely takes steps in trying to, through raising our awareness that history is not history for the people of Palestine.