Iraqi children's play shows "We are all friends"

By Yasir Faisel

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The young performers were funny, the audience giggled and clapped, and the message at a children's theatre festival in Iraq's National Theatre was as serious as it was entertaining.

"I am fast! I am fast! Ha ha!" taunted 11-year-old Abathir Fadhil, bouncing around the stage in a furry bunny suit in the classic story of the tortoise and the hare.

"You want to be my friend? But you are so slow! You can't be my friend," he teased the tortoise, played by a young girl in a short green skirt and cardboard shell.

For those who don't know the story, the quick hare ends up getting hurt and relies on the slow tortoise to help him.

"Help me, my friend!" shouted the hare, to the crowd's delight. A chorus of children shouted back: "What did you say?"

"Help me, my friend!"

The play was called "How Beautiful Is Friendship" and in a country where tens of thousands of civilians have been killed in sectarian violence, the point was clear.

"They are Christians, Kurds, Sunnis and Shi'ites. They are all friends and you can feel that despite their differences," director Suhaila Abdul-Hussein, said of her cast on Thursday.