{"id":24838,"date":"2023-02-05T10:12:32","date_gmt":"2023-02-05T08:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/?p=24838"},"modified":"2023-02-23T18:52:10","modified_gmt":"2023-02-23T16:52:10","slug":"iraqi-diaspora-playwrights-hassan-abdulrazak-jasmine-naziha-jones-use-your-anger-as-fuel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/iraqi-diaspora-playwrights-hassan-abdulrazak-jasmine-naziha-jones-use-your-anger-as-fuel\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraqi Diaspora Playwrights Hassan Abdulrazzak & Jasmine Naziha Jones: Use Your Anger as Fuel"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
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This is the first in a new series where Middle Eastern cultural practitioners discuss art and expression. This TMR Conversations is <\/em>moderated by Malu Halasa<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\r\n

As Naziha Jones says in her conversation with Abdulrazzak, \u201cThe line between comedy and tragedy is whisper-thin.\u201d Her play <\/em>Baghdaddy draws on the many ages of personal experience when war, exile, and trauma scar a young, impressionable life. Jones is fiercely determined to bring Iraqi experiences to wider audiences.<\/em><\/p>\r\n

\u00a0<\/h4>\r\n

Hassan Abdulrazak and Jasmine Naziha Jones<\/h4>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

Hassan Abdulrazzak<\/strong>\u2014It took me time to recover from watching your remarkable play Baghdaddy<\/em>. For an Iraqi, it was quite a lot to take in because it revisited the Iraqi past. For people who might be reading this and haven\u2019t seen the play, could you give us a brief overview of what the play is about?<\/p>\r\n

Jasmine Naziha Jones<\/strong>\u2014Baghdaddy<\/em> is an exploration of my childhood memories of the Gulf War and the subsequent occupation of Iraq. What the play does is to reconcile my childhood memories with an adult understanding of what my dad endured watching the horror unfold from the safety of our home in the UK. It takes my memories and his memories, and explores them in an expressionistic way, with the help of three spirits who act as a chorus.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/p>\r\n

HA<\/strong>\u2014I will get to that, but first I want to ask what motivated you to write the play. You\u2019ve had a long career as an actress. What inspired you to tap into your memories and write about Iraq in this way?<\/p>\r\n

JNJ<\/strong>\u2014I\u2019ve written works since I left drama school, but mostly to perform myself. This is the first autobiographical piece I\u2019ve written. It was the direct result of seeing A History of Water in the Middle East<\/em><\/a> at the Royal Court by Sabrina Mahfouz<\/a>, which is a testament to how important it is to see diversity of stories on our stages. I think it engenders more people to tell their stories \u2014 to see themselves. So I saw A History of Water in the Middle East<\/em>, and an hour before the performance, I took a workshop with you as well. You gave some very sage advice in that workshop, which was to use your anger as fuel. What you said really made sense to me after I\u2019d seen Sabrina\u2019s play. I felt really angry. I felt galvanized by what I\u2019d seen. I went home, and I wrote the first 10 pages of what would become Baghdaddy<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n

HA<\/strong>\u2014You\u2019ve said in previous interviews, and it\u2019s a theme that you deal with in the play, that it is very common for second-generation immigrants to secretly process the grief of our elders. It was a statement that stuck with me, coming as I do from Iraq. It is something that I have grappled with. Could you expand a little more on the idea?<\/p>\r\n

JNJ<\/strong>\u2014How do we come to process the grief of our elders? I think it\u2019s because when you inhabit both oppressed and privileged statuses, you aren\u2019t necessarily wholly accepted into one or the other \u2014 or you\u2019re possibly sheltered from one reality. Certainly in my house, things weren\u2019t talked about extensively or in detail with the children. There was a certain element of protecting us, but of course you see your parents experiencing these things and you absorb it. As you get older, you start to ask questions of yourself to make sense of it. I try to picture what my dad must have gone through \u2014 feeling so awful for him and also awful for myself. I\u2019ve always felt a really strong connection with Iraq. I have a lot of family there. But like many other second gen-ers, I didn\u2019t have anywhere to grieve; I didn\u2019t know how to express my grief. So this play was an expression of my grief as well as an effort to try to understand my dad.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a>
Baghdaddy,<\/em> a playfully devastating coming-of-age story, told through clowning and memory to explore the complexities of cultural identity, generational trauma and a father-daughter relationship amidst global conflict. Available from Bloomsbury<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n

The play taught me that we do secretly process the grief of our elders. You want them to talk about it and say, you must have felt this or you must have felt that. But, instead, you go through the motions of it yourself. I can\u2019t imagine what it\u2019s like to be wrenched from everyone I know and love.<\/p>\r\n

HA<\/strong>\u2014There are so many beautiful things in your play. There is one scene that is silent. It\u2019s a short one, in which the father figure is watching the Gulf War, and he comes out of the bedroom. He walks past the TV several times, I think, in his underwear. It\u2019s a very domestic scene. There\u2019s a moment where he\u2019s almost yawning, and then he\u2019s screaming and goes back into his bedroom.<\/p>\r\n

I remember when I was watching this onstage, it really resonated with me because my mother, going through the Gulf War, was grieving massively. But she would also hide it so that we children wouldn\u2019t panic. She would go into her bedroom and lock the door. The images of this war launched CNN<\/a>. It was on every night. What you\u2019ve captured really beautifully in the play is the effect of that on Iraqis living away from their homeland. It didn\u2019t come pain-free, even if they were living in safety.<\/p>\r\n

We\u2019ve talked a lot about grief and pain, but I want to highlight to people reading this that Baghdaddy<\/em> is very funny. In my own play, Baghdad Wedding<\/em>, which is about Iraq, and which came out 15 years ago, I also used comedy as a vehicle of telling the story of Iraq. It\u2019s a kind of love story with some comedy in the first act, after which things get more serious. I noticed you use that strategy. So I wanted to talk to you about the role of comedy. Why use comedy to tell a story about Iraq?<\/p>\r\n

JNJ<\/strong>\u2014I think that the line between comedy and tragedy is whisper-thin. I was aware of not wanting to be aggressive with my anger or pain. So I found it really useful to employ comedy as a device to speak about these things. You could win trust, but you could also talk about really tragic things. Additionally, I used comedy to destabilize the audience. So the play seesaws between breathtaking tragedy and disarming comedy. To me, that was the Trojan horse of slipping in the underlying message, which was this: Is it possible for you in the audience, in the window of these two hours in this theater, to feel this pain as well? I felt comedy was the best device to deliver that.<\/p>\r\n

HA<\/strong>\u2014Also, I feel it\u2019s a cultural thing, isn\u2019t it, for Iraqis in general \u2014 perhaps because of the tragedy that has happened to the country \u2014 to have this kind of dark humor, and resort to it. Recently, I watched Maysoon Pachachi<\/a>\u2019s film, Our River… Our Sky<\/em><\/a>. There was a scene in that film where passengers on a bus in Baghdad are joking about checkpoints ahead. Then, suddenly, gunfire comes into the bus and everybody\u2019s sort of ducking and trying to dodge the bullets. When the gunfire stops, they make further jokes about what has happened. The main character of the film is writing this down, which is Maysoon\u2019s co-writer Irada Al Jabbouri<\/a>\u2019s way of indicating: \u201cThis really happened. This is a slice of life from Iraq that I\u2019ve captured.\u201d A way of dealing with trauma is resorting to humor. So other than Darlee, whom you played on stage, and the father who fell apart \u2014 wonderfully played by Philip Arditti<\/a> \u2014 there were also three supernatural figures. Can you tell us a bit more about them, and why you chose to have them in the play, and what they added?<\/p>\r\n

JNJ<\/strong>\u2014When I came home from Sabrina\u2019s play and started writing Baghdaddy<\/em>, it came to me as three voices speaking about my experience, I guess, in the third person. As the play and my research evolved, they became spirits with different agendas. Their function in the play is that they are a manifestation of an internal argument I\u2019m having with myself: my past self; my younger self; my older, wiser self; and also the destructive self.<\/p>\r\n

They can be menacing. They can be benevolent. They\u2019re sometimes unreliable. But they also serve as the cogent thread that holds this play together because we are flipping in and out of memories, and we\u2019re flipping in and out of decades. So they really helped to place us in time and space. They assume various personality roles, and play lots of different characters as well. They guide Darlee through the 1980s, the 1990s, and the early noughties. They were incredibly useful. They serve as a chorus.<\/p>\r\n

It was important to have this chorus to make things explicit to the audience. It\u2019s not a subtle piece of work, but it\u2019s purposefully not subtle. Because I felt my time on this stage was limited, I needed to be really clear and really bold in what I was saying. The chorus helped with that clarity.<\/p>\r\n

HA<\/strong>\u2014I think they also help in managing the time because you covered all the major wars Iraq has gone through. You covered the Iran\u2013Iraq War, the Gulf War, and then the recent Iraq War. That device was really just so wonderful in terms of enabling you to jump-cut between situations and scenarios. You packed so much in.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

\"\"
Amer Al Obaidi (Iraqi, b. 1943), “Celebrating the Horse Domestication,” oil on canvas, 120 x 140cm, 2004 (courtesy Michael Jeha\/Christies).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

JNJ<\/strong>\u2014It\u2019s a coming-of-age story that spans decades. Instead of using complicated sets and lighting, we have the chorus, as well as other theatrical elements. But it\u2019s mostly the storytelling from the chorus that depicts time and space most clearly out of all the elements that we\u2019re using.<\/p>\r\n

HA<\/strong>\u2014The play deals, in part, with the question of identity of somebody who\u2019s Iraqi, but Darlee, the figure you play, the young girl at the heart of the relationship with her dad is torn between two worlds, as is the father himself. They\u2019re in between, and I know from interviews you\u2019ve given that you dislike the question, \u201cHave you been to Iraq?\u201d If it comes from an Iraqi, you called it \u2014 I love this phrase \u2014 \u201ca barometer of authenticity.\u201d So, could you speak about this identity question, and how you deal with it?<\/p>\r\n

JNJ<\/strong>\u2014That question, \u201cHave you been to Iraq?\u201d was asked in a Q&A after the play. I found it ironic because the play thematically covers these questions being asked of the protagonist Darlee: \u201cHave you been there?\u201d \u201cDo you have family there?\u201d \u201cCan you speak Iraqi?\u201d These questions in the play are used to squash, belittle, and minimize Darlee\u2019s identity.<\/p>\r\n

What I was doing there was exploring a very common theme experienced by many mixed-race people, which is: There seems to be this desire by others for you to quantify your authenticity. The person who\u2019s asking that question gets to decide based on this arbitrary list of questions: \u201cHow authentic you are?\u201d \u201cDo you speak the language?\u201d \u201cHave you been there?\u201d \u201cDo you have relatives that live there?\u201d<\/p>\r\n

What this so painfully does is undermine the feelings of your life experience \u2014 the experience that I was trying to show in the play. So to be asked that question, after the audience sat through two hours of a play that was exploring these themes, to me felt quite sad. I declined to answer the question because it\u2019s not important. I\u2019m sure that person meant well. But it\u2019s something that has been asked a lot throughout my life. I\u2019m not into other people deciding that for me anymore.<\/p>\r\n

HA<\/strong>\u2014It\u2019s one thing when it comes from Iraqis; it\u2019s got that edge to it. You also deal with that really well in the play when it comes from non-Iraqis, when it comes from English people, for example. That question of \u201cWhere do you come from?\u201d and that kind of sometimes fake sympathy of \u201cOh, that must be really terrible\u201d from people who are not really engaged.<\/p>\r\n

The play also raises the question, one I used to answer sincerely when I was asked: \u201cWhat do you think about Saddam?\u201d This is addressed hilariously at the beginning of the play, and then in a serious way, in the second half. You set it up with comedy in the first half and then you flip it in the second half, and challenge the audience with it, through the use of a direct address, which changes the style of the play. That monologue that deals with this issue of Saddam Hussein \u2014 how did that come about for you? Was that a natural progression in the writing? Or was it something that developed as you were finessing the play?<\/p>\r\n

JNJ<\/strong>\u2014Darlee is on a journey of understanding. And these are the questions that are asked of her in her childhood. \u201cWhat do you think of Saddam?\u201d They are not questions she can make sense of, at that age. They are questions she internalizes. So there\u2019s a speech at the end of the play where Darlee is at a university interview, and she\u2019s asked, \u201cWhat do you think of Saddam?\u201d<\/p>\r\n

For the first time, she turns the question around on the people who are asking her, and she asks them: \u201cWhat do I think of Saddam? Well, hang on a minute! Obviously, he\u2019s a monster. But what do you think of the sanctions on Iraq?\u201d And the play talks about the West\u2019s hand in the destruction of Iraq.<\/p>\r\n

What I\u2019m trying to do is ask the audience to consider the West\u2019s role in that as well as Saddam\u2019s. It was really important for me to talk about the sanctions because the sanctions are the hidden agony of Iraq. By the time the invasion happened, the country was already existing in medieval conditions. The narrative that was spun by the Western media was that, you know, Saddam had done all of that to the people of Iraq. Well, yes, he\u2019d done many terrible things. But the West had a big hand in preparing the country to be defeated quite easily in this invasion. I just wanted the audience to know about the hidden agony of the sanctions and to consider both sides of the story. Really, there are such horrific details, and what I covered in the play was only a small amount.<\/p>\r\n

I wanted the play to enlighten as well as entertain. I felt that this was my one shot to give a voice to my people.<\/p>\r\n

HA<\/strong>\u2014The sanctions are a forgotten episode of history. I remember going to a presentation at the Arab British Centre<\/a> by an English historian who has written a book about Iraq \u2014 I won\u2019t mention specifics of who this person is, but he gave this whole presentation of the book and left out 13 years of sanctions. I raised the question, \u201cWhat happened then?\u201d He gave the impression that he thought this was a minor episode. But everything that happened subsequently to Iraq, in terms of the collapse of the country, the seeds of all that were sown in the sanction years. I touched on that in Baghdad Wedding<\/em>. There\u2019s a scene when somebody returns to Iraq, and somebody else tells them about the books that were sold to make ends meet. This was one of the striking images at the time of Iraq: that many academics, for example, had to sell their books to survive, which was heartbreaking for them.<\/p>\r\n

JNJ<\/strong>\u2014And, you know, not just books. I mean, people were literally selling bricks from the walls in their houses, as well as doors and bits of carpet. I just don\u2019t think people realize the extent of that. I first heard about it in the 1990s. I used to accompany my dad. Pre-internet, he used to go and give speeches and tell people firsthand, \u201cLook, this is what the sanctions are doing.\u201d I\u2019m there as a little child holding all of this information, telling my friends on the playground. What I\u2019m trying to communicate with this play is this child holding on to all of this, knowing all of this and not knowing what to do with it. It all comes out in the speech at the end. The systematic destruction was so calculated. I mean, God, it\u2019s tantamount to genocide \u2014 the amount of people who died.<\/p>\r\n

HA<\/strong>\u2014When the Iraq War happened in 2003, there was a slew of plays written mainly by Western writers, and also American films, very often from the soldiers\u2019 point of view, or from the point of view of a middle-class family debating a war that is far removed from them. For me, that was part of the motivation for writing Baghdad Wedding<\/em>. I had seen David Hare\u2019s 2006 play Stuff Happens<\/em><\/a>, which was all about the politicians and the political sphere. What really annoyed me about it is that it ended on an apparently verbatim quote from an Iraqi, who said: \u201cWell, if we don\u2019t sort out our own mess, this is what happens to us.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

That was almost like your moment with Sabrina Mahfouz\u2019s play, which galvanized you in a positive way to write your play. That was my moment, the one that galvanized me to write Baghdad Wedding<\/em> because I felt the Iraqis were very minimal in Hare\u2019s play. They didn\u2019t have enough agency in Stuff Happens<\/em>. I felt there was something missing.<\/p>\r\n

I wanted to ask you more about the production of your play because I think it\u2019s quite interesting for the Royal Court to put on a play about Iraq right now when things have moved on. People are looking at the Ukraine War.<\/p>\r\n

JNJ<\/strong>\u2014I took part in the intro to playwriting course at the Royal Court. At the end of that I submitted a draft of Baghdaddy<\/em>. I got some feedback, and I submitted another draft. So it was really through that scheme that I got programed. Why did they want to program it? You probably have to speak to the literary department. I would argue that although times have moved on, we are only now making sense of what\u2019s happened. We still have many plays about the Holocaust and the fallout of that. This is generational trauma that we\u2019re speaking about. It doesn\u2019t just get washed away with the sands of time. You know, it will be passed on for generations. And I think this is a really important part of our history. It needs to be documented in art by Iraqi voices. As you say, we didn\u2019t get to speak that much.<\/p>\r\n

So for the Royal Court to platform this story, to platform an Iraqi voice, is so important to me and to other Iraqi people. I cannot tell you the amount of people who came up to me personally. Some Iraqi people on the bus from Newcastle traveled to the play, saw it, and came back to see it with their relatives and friends. They were saying, \u201cThank you for telling this story. It\u2019s my story too.\u201d They felt so seen.<\/p>\r\n

Also other people who were not from the same culture, but from similar backgrounds, were like, \u201cIt\u2019s not my story, but it\u2019s so similar to mine.\u201d A lot of people felt seen. I think you can\u2019t underestimate the healing of public validation.<\/p>\r\n

HA<\/strong>\u2014I totally hear you on that. I had similar feedback for Baghdad Wedding<\/em> by Iraqis who lived in Britain and felt they didn\u2019t have that validation. But I really felt that much more when the play went to Australia, and it was performed in Sydney at the Belvoir St Theatre<\/a>. There was a lot of negative press about the Iraqi diaspora. When they came to see the play, they thanked me and said, \u201cYou\u2019ve presented us in a different light.\u201d That\u2019s a moment I\u2019ll always treasure.<\/p>\r\n

I think you make a very good point that there\u2019s so much to explore. The Iraq War is such a huge event; it is almost the equivalent of World War I at the beginning of the 20th century. It has such resonances for the region and for the countries that were involved. I think there still are many more stories that need to be told about it.<\/p>\r\n

You had a wonderful cast for Baghdaddy<\/em>. Amongst them was fellow Iraqi actress, Hayat Kamille<\/a>. I wanted to ask you about collaborating with Hayat, and about having another Iraqi in the cast.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

JNJ<\/strong>\u2014It was so great to collaborate with another Iraqi actor. It was really important to me that we tried to have as much representation as possible. When I was researching the play, the Arab British Centre very kindly facilitated a set of coffee mornings during my research stages, and I spoke to people from the diaspora and met Hayat. Coincidentally, she was an actor. So, when the play got programed, we called her in and the stars aligned. She brought so much to the role. It was very comforting for me to have somebody else there, to have her support every night. We had an unspoken understanding \u2014 not least because, for purely selfish reasons, I was performing in the play every night. We shared a dressing room as well. You know, some nights were really difficult, and I\u2019d come offstage upset. To have her there and just to share a hug and realize that she knows how much was taken from us meant I just didn\u2019t have to explain myself. So I was absolutely delighted to be able to work with her.<\/p>\r\n

Malu Halasa<\/strong>\u2014I just wanted to ask both of you: Because Iraq is not often represented onstage, do you feel like there\u2019s more of an interest now? Is there a community of Middle Eastern playwrights in London? Or are the two of you forging your own separate ways in an attempt to get the material shown?<\/p>\r\n

HA<\/strong>\u2014There is now a growing community of Middle Eastern writers. There\u2019s a wonderful WhatsApp group for Arab writers that we are all on. People exchange ideas and messages. The younger generation that\u2019s coming up is really enthusiastic and hungry. A lot of their focus is more on film and TV. They\u2019re trying to break into that. But also they have an interest in theater. In that WhatsApp group, there are people like Saeed Taji Farouky<\/a>, who is a wonderful documentary film director. He\u2019s often a great commentator on the arts scene, and we\u2019ve had very vigorous debates about the films Farha<\/em><\/a> and The Swimmers<\/em><\/a>. People feel proud that these films are coming out. But at the same time, they\u2019re also debating them in a rigorous way. When I started, there wasn\u2019t this kind of community. How was your experience with the community, Jasmine?<\/p>\r\n

JNJ<\/strong>\u2014Mainly through MENA Arts UK<\/a>, an organization set up in the last three or so years. They do mixers, and organize outings to plays. They organized a night at my play. You get reduced tickets, and we did a Q&A afterwards. The group is extremely proactive. It\u2019s a great place to meet people and network. It\u2019s wonderful to be part of something, having floated through life not feeling like part of a community for so long.<\/p>\r\n

HA<\/strong>\u2014However, I feel there\u2019s still a way to go in terms of putting more Arab and Middle Eastern work out there in the UK. Before the pandemic, the playwright Hannah Khalil<\/a> and I tried to set up a company. We were inspired by the theater company Golden Thread Productions<\/a> in San Francisco, which is dedicated to Middle Eastern culture and identity. They\u2019ve put on some of both my and Hannah Khalil\u2019s work. There isn\u2019t an equivalent production company in the UK. There are companies for black artists, and for artists of Indian or Pakistani heritage, but there isn\u2019t really one for the Middle East in the UK. Because then it wouldn\u2019t be just individual writers like us trying to pitch and hoping and praying that theaters will give us the space. It would be more organized advocacy. A company that demands: You have to give us that space.<\/p>\r\n

JNJ<\/strong>\u2014Hassan, what kind of stories would you hope a company like that would be telling? Would it be Middle Eastern-centric stories? Or could it be stories about the human experience, so to speak?<\/p>\r\n

HA<\/strong>\u2014For me, everything under that banner. It certainly shouldn\u2019t just be Middle East-centric. I was speaking, for example, with the Iraqi director Diyan Zora<\/a>. She said that, often, what we\u2019ve written about the Middle East has tended to be very political. We haven\u2019t had, for example, a family drama that is, say, in the tradition of American plays \u2014 a family gets together, things come out and all of that. Diyan is working on such a play.<\/p>\r\n

Yet, Jasmine, your play, Baghdaddy<\/em>, obviously had the father-daughter relationship. I\u2019ve written a play, which I\u2019m still trying to get produced, called A Fire Blazing Brightly<\/em>, about an Iraqi family and their dynamics. But there is also a political element in the play, with certain scenes set in Iraq. So it\u2019s not quite a straightforward family drama.<\/p>\r\n

As for the company, I think it should be anything that is within this code. Another play that I\u2019m working on, called Retreat<\/em>, is about trauma and depression. But I\u2019m coming at it from a comedic angle. The play is not entirely about the Middle East experience. It\u2019s taking things from that background and taking things I\u2019ve seen in my family and my parents, and so on, but trying to create a drama that will speak to many people about depression, for example, and how that can manifest itself. So I think we can tap into our experiences in multiple ways.<\/p>\r\n

That\u2019s why I go back to the idea that we need a company. Hannah Khalil\u2019s play Hakawatis: Women of the Arabian Nights<\/em><\/a> at the Globe Theatre<\/a> included contributions by Hanan al-Shaykh<\/a>, <\/strong>Suhayla El-Bushra<\/a>, and Sara Shaarawi<\/a>. It was a brilliant reimagining of The Arabian Nights<\/em><\/a> told through female characters supporting Scheherazade, who is offstage. That was co-produced at the Globe Theatre with Tamasha<\/a>, a <\/em>theater production company that generally has more focus on South Asia. Having that gave the play more power. I think we need more companies like that to make an impact and to further diversify the landscape.<\/p>\r\n

MH<\/strong>\u2014I want to thank you both for this intriguing conversation. I was particularly taken by Jasmine\u2019s comments on explaining one\u2019s self, or proving one\u2019s authenticity. I think those pressures are placed on Middle Eastern cultural practitioners, and we internalize them. The question now is how to rid ourselves of those pressures, and go straight to what the two of you are essentially talking about, which is storytelling. Because that\u2019s the key that unlocks emotion, that unlocks empathy, and gives us everything we want to get from our stories and what we hope our stories will do. That is the challenge for Arab writers and playwrights today, no matter their backgrounds or where they\u2019re writing, whether in London or Baghdad.<\/p>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u00a0<\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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