Mind Your Language

Still thoughtful and spinning with excitement, after an intense week of audition and selection process for Home Grown youth theatre project, a collaborative initiative between Middle East Theatre Academy (META) and Kevin Spacey Foundation (KSF). I wanted to share a few thoughts and insights, which I am still digesting, as these seem important in the wider context of Middle East and its arts community. I will focus on thoughts related to the Arabic language for this post.

The main part of the application process of Home Grown was the audition speech, which was taken from Withdrawal by Syrian playwright Mohammed Al Attar. This was available in both the English translation and the original Arabic in which it was written, and candidate had the choice to perform the speech in either language (and some submitted videos in both!). The play we plan to produce in January 2015 was commissioned by British-Iraqi playwright Hassan Abdulrazzak; written in English, the play will be presented in both Arabic and English for the final production. The Home Grown creative team took extracts of Abdulrazzak’s play, hastily translated into modern-standard Arabic, to Sharjah for cold readings with shortlisted candidate. We chose to do ‘cold readings’ to get a spontaneous feel for those presenting, rather than a studied product. I read from the extracts (generally badly!) with potential participants, over two full days of live and Skype auditions. Unsurprisingly, I feel a particular connection with all 60 or so young people I read with. As the translated extracts were done in a very short time, candidates had to deal with a somewhat stilted text, complete with typos and yet-to-be-translated sections, and yet all somehow managed to make this work to their advantage.

Quality of translation aside, I am left fascinated and curious as to how Arabic is perceived as a language for the theatre. Modern-standard Arabic (or fus7a) is the standard written and presented form (on the news, TV programs, radio, newspapers and books etc). From my limited understanding, this is also how theatrical plays are traditionally delivered. There’s been a move, in the arts, which encourages the use of national dialects, for example, Al Attar’s play is written in his native Syrian dialect. Candidates had the option of reading in modern-standard or in dialect, and as we wanted to gain insight to their personality, I encouraged readings in their native dialect, and so we had a wonderful mix of duologues with my Iraqi dialect spoken with Suadi, Lebanese, Syrian, Yemeni, Tunisian, Algerian, Emarati, Palestinian and more. When asked which they preferred, most said their native dialect, whilst some chose modern-standard. The former allows a national and regional idiosyncratic identity and personal connection to the text, whilst the latter draws on the weight and wealth of a linguistic form uniting all the Middle East and North Africa. As a native Arabic speaker myself, both these forms speak straight to my own heart, and I relished this opportunity to work in the Arabic language within a theatre context  (my first!).

Often, candidates would choose to read in English, perhaps to generously to include our (mainly non-Arabic speaking) creative team, and yet, when directly asked to read in Arabic, so much more character and life flowed through the text. At times, even for those who had grown-up in an Arabic-speaking country, English remained their preferred language. Many had gone to schools and universities where English is given precedence, and so understandably, English is more often than not, the everyday working language. I relate to this on a personal level; since the age of 11 years, when my family moved to the UK, English has been my dominant language, although I’d been in an exclusively Arabic speaking Iraqi education, I now communicate in English, even with Arabic-speaking Middle Eastern friends (!). I feel a sadness at what I believe is a lack of validation we (as Arabs educated with a Western model) give to our linguistic heritage. I witnessed a pride of the Arabic language, from some candidates, which I found inspiring and immensely encouraging.

I left with excitement and curiosity as to the possibilities of mixing some of the diverse Arabic dialects in our Home Grown production. I am familiar, and enjoy mimicking, the many regional accents within my native Iraq, and am aware how this can be used as valuable material for the actor’s creative characterisation process. I want to encourage young Arabic actors to draw on their heritage, to find ways of including their national and regional identities in their artistic endeavours, rather than always looking towards Hollywood, Disney and Shakespeare for inspiration. This part of our identity, with its cultural implications, is what makes us unique. And arguably, the other part/s will continue to have a Western influence, via past colonisations and modern globalisation.

As I write this, I wish I could do more than a Google Translate version to Arabic readers (post to follow), and yet, I simply don’t have the skill. I’ll make an attempt, and invite corrections and suggestions from others better equipped than myself!

Please note: this blogpost expresses my personal opinion and experience on Home Grown, and is not necessarily representative of KSF or META, nor other individuals involved on the Creative Team.