A neurosis clinic south-east of Beirut (el da7yeh el janoubiyeh or the south suburb of beirut) where a dozen of patients reside and are treated by a staff of four female nurses and two male nurses and one doctor. Supposedly this is the infamous "Mustashfa al Asfourieh" which the Lebanese people refer to as the asylum for mad people (Mustashfa al Majanin).

The scene opens on the sound of explosions coming from the trenches between east and west Beirut as the Lebanese national anthem plays om . An announcer with a husky voice declares that it was the year 1980 or it could be 1979 or it could be the year 1978, where the general political situation didn't change, as the civil war is stagnating in fixed trenches (al mahawer al taklidiya). This choice of date at the beginning of the play was taken by many as a prediction by Ziad that the civil war will continue at least for another 10 years, which it did. The central character of this play is Rachid (Ziad), self-proclaimed, "King of the Lebanese Street - Malak as-Saha al Lubnaniya" (that is, the smartest streetwise kid in Lebanon). This guy is hilarious and extremely cool in the American standard. You can never win or start an argument with him. You cannot even reconstruct what he is talking about. He is so neurotic that he has multi-personalities but non of them are harmful. Yet there are whims of genius at times. If Ziad deserves an Oscar it should for his role in this play. Then there is Abu Leila (Joseph Saker) who is in the clinic for treatment from drug addiction. He is a former member of the Beirut rock band "the Black Fingers" and his residence in the clinic is like a picnic.