After the War
Iraqi theatre artists forge ahead—and reach for global connections—in a cautious, still-fragile country
By Rob Weinert-Kendt
“Theatre is in our blood,” says Waleed Shamil, assistant professor of theatre at Baghdad University. “We can’t do anything else.”
That kind of determination has proven essential in a country where, after nearly nine years of war and occupation by a U.S.-led coalition, public cultural life remains something of a casualty. “We can say we have theatre, but we don’t have theatre,” laments Shamil, who adds, “No cinema, either. Can you imagine—the second-largest capital of the Arab world after Cairo, and no movie theatre?” Only the Hunting Club, a place for VIPs, screens films; otherwise, Shamil says, most Iraqis are content to stay home and watch DVDs, not least because of the security situation.
This understandable tendency for Iraqis to keep their heads down has taken its toll on the nation’s live theatre scene. But there have been exceptions and small glimmers of hope: An experimental theatre festival, the first of its kind in a decade, was organized last November by the Ministry of Culture, aiming “to show that Baghdad is okay for returning back to normal life,” as Shamil puts it. The festival featured performances by companies from the Ukraine, Tunisia and France, alongside work by Iraqi troupes.
And at a presentation during the TCG National Conference in Los Angeles last June, Shamil highlighted other encouraging, even heroic theatrical events of recent years: plays staged under a bombed-out Baghdad bridge by the Al Mada street theatre troupe in 2007; a piece of “theatre reportage” by Ali Kareem, staged in a decimated church as a way to reconcile Christians and Muslims; a university production of a heavily adapted Hamlet. Shamil quoted a speech from the title character of the latter production: “I am proud I am Iraqi; I live between two rivers but I have no water to drink. I live on an ocean of oil, but I don’t have a gallon of gas for my car. I am the best extra in the world.”
Indeed, university productions seem to fill the void left in the near-absence of locally grown professional theatre. (Shamil recalls that in the 1980s, during his country’s war with Iran, “Comedies played to full houses. The idea was that such things keep people busy and take their minds off the war.” Commercial theatre as such hasn’t existed since the 1990s.) Every May, Baghdad University hosts a theatre festival, and for the past few years, it has had the benefit of a beautifully rebuilt theatre—though its provenance is decidedly bittersweet. “The American army came and rebuilt our theatre in 2009 at a cost of $250,000, which is a fraction of what the bombs cost that destroyed it,” Shamil notes drily.
Also in attendance at the TCG conference were monologist Amir Al-Azraki and Iraqi-American writer/performer Heather Raffo, whose 2003 solo play 9 Parts of Desire unveils the multifaceted lives of Iraqi women for Western audiences. When asked whether she’d like to take the widely seen show to Iraq, Raffo replied, “I would rather see it done by Iraqi women in their own dialects. I know that Iraqis would feel so represented if they knew this had been a hit play in the U.S.” Raffo couldn’t resist adding, “They would say, ‘The Jews supported that?’”
Shamil is making Raffo’s wish come true: He is “nearly 60-percent done” with an Arabic-language adaptation of Raffo’s 9 Parts, which he hopes to premiere in Baghdad this year with a famous Iraqi actress, Laila Muhammad. “There’s been a lot of changing, but the basic structure is there—the characters and the stories,” Shamil reports. “I want it to be an Iraqi play, in one way or another.”
Al-Azraki, who recently completed his Ph.D. in theatre at York University in Toronto, is also partnering with a U.S. playwright, Michele Lowe, to bring her play Inana to Basra, where Al-Azraki has returned to teach. For his part, Al-Azraki would like to see “an exchange of shows that introduce the culture of the other into both countries, to counteract Arab stereotypes of Americans and to counteract American stereotypes of Arabs.” To that end, he advocates “artistic programs that could immerse artists in each others’ culture.”
The web-based volunteer organization Theatre Without Borders was instrumental in helping to bring Shamil, Al-Azraki and Pakistani theatre artist Shahid Nadeem to the U.S. last June and introducing them to U.S. artists and organizations. The fruits of that bicoastal trip include, for instance, a plan for a dozen theatre students and three teachers, including Shamil, to come from Baghdad University to Georgetown University’s Theatre Department in Washington, D.C., for its May/June pre-summer school session. Al-Azraki is also credited with inspiring the U.S. State Department to sponsor U.S. visits for female playwrights from Iraq.
These are hopeful signs. But even (or especially) since the departure of U.S. troops from Iraq in December, civil society and the rule of law remain fragile constructs there. Last September, Shamil’s friend and colleague Hadi al-Mahdi—a radio journalist and theatre director who had been critical of the Iraqi government—was killed on the eve of a demonstration he helped organize.
“It is difficult to open your mouth and say what you want to say,” Shamil says. “Too many militias are watching you. Politics, sex, religion—these are the red-light danger areas.” What sustains Shamil’s hopes despite the odds are his students: “They are always very enthusiastic to make theatre no matter what. Even though there is not that much opportunity for them, the theatre instinct is working in them very strongly.”