The Play in Production

In this section, you have the chance to listen to or watch interviews with three people who played a critical role in turning the play into a production: the translator, the composer and an actor.

 

An Interview with Hassan Abdulrazzak 

Hassan is a playwright and the translator of the Chorus sections of A Museum in Baghdad. Here he talks about the process of translating from English into Arabic, his responses to the play as an Iraqi, his memories of Baghdad and his responses to his recent trip to the Museum of Iraq, Baghdad.

Here is the full interview, with some key quotes below:

 

 

On translating: ‘You inhabit the characters, you try to get into the spirit of the play…I try to make [the lines] as sayable as possible’

On the impact of the Invasion: ‘People could see the future, even back then, and they went ahead anyway

On seeing the play in production: ‘I felt Arabic as a literary language had arrived on the British stage…it gave me a strange sense of belonging’

On representation and visibility: ‘When you have been excluded from the narrative for so long when you are suddenly included, it is an amazing moment

Memories of Baghdad: ‘I used to love sleeping on the roof…the stars are so vivid…it happens less now because people are afraid of something falling on  them – a stray bullet or bomb – which is a sad thing to have lost, culturally’

 

 

An Interview with Actor Houda Echouafni  

Listen to Houda talk about the character Layla, her reflections on playing her, an actor’s process, and being part of a company predominantly comprising actors from the Arab World.

 

Audio Interview with Houda

 

On Layla: ‘she defies the environment that she is in…she is hard, she appears hard, but slowly we get to see her humour; how she uses sarcasm, which is a real weapon for her in this environment

On playing Layla: ‘I could be free with her on stage and allow her to take over  which meant every performance was slightly different

On Layla’s decision making: ‘I choose - there’s very little we can choose – I  choose to try champagne; not the hijab chooses, not the religion or the war  chooses, I choose’

On Mohammed: ‘had the war not happened, what might have been…?’

On being part of a company of predominantly Arab actors: ‘I don’t think I  knew how significant it was until I got to Stratford…the RSC was never a world I  thought was open to me…I didn’t know how scary it would be to be speaking the Arabic language to a predominantly white audience…we were challenging the audience to experience something different’.

 

An Interview with Composer Oğuz Kaplangi

Listen to Oğuz talk about his responses to the play and his process of creating original music and sound design for the production. This will be of particular note for anyone interested in composition or the role of music in theatre

 

 

On music and place: ‘As a composer coming from Anatolia, I am very familiar  with Middle Eastern music, but I knew I had to be very careful: Iraq is different  to Iran; is different to Turkey, in terms of instrumentation and style’

On starting points: ‘Oud was one of my first things reflecting Iraq and the  region’s music [that I wanted to use] both as a supporting instrument, an  accompanying instrument, but also a lead instrument’

In his first response to the play: ‘Gertrude Bell is known as a spy in Turkey,  one of the main people who made the Turkey/Iraq border…in school you just  know what you are told…but when I first read the play I knew what I had been  told was just the tip of the iceberg’

In his creative process: ‘rehearsal is when I shape my music, first in my mind,  and then I write it there and then…I am like a chef, I can serve it up where I cook it!’

On the role of music in theatre: ‘music is for…opening another dimension in the audience’s side of view…it is good that music stays in your ears after a play’.

 

 

Have a look at some moments from the production in this trailer and hear some responses from audience members

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g5gGDUHj77g&feature=youtu.be

 

 

 

Who Owns the Past

This production explores different perspectives on the value of museums and where a country’s objects should be kept. We asked three commentators for their thoughts

 

Ellen McAdams

The UK’s museums have historic, encyclopaedic collections: the result of Prince Albert’s inspiration working like yeast on national/civic pride and British Imperial wealth. They are great educational institutions, attracting mass audiences, and creating a sense of place and identity. The model has not always been transplanted successfully to former colonies.

Should objects be repatriated? Yes, if they were illegally acquired, if they are of significance to the originating culture, and if that culture wants them. Collections are publicly owned, and UK citizens may include descendants of that culture, with their own opinions about where objects should be seen.

How do we learn about other cultures, if objects never move? We all have millennia of history: we can afford to be generous with it. An Assyrian bas-relief comes to me – a bed Queen Elizabeth slept in goes to you.

The Louvre, for example, displays the Law Code of Hammurabi which was looted by 12th-century Elamites from Babylon, and excavated by French archaeologists in Iran. Where do you stop?

 

Ellen McAdam has been the Director of Birmingham Museum Trust since October 2013. Before this, she was Head of Glasgow Museums. She worked for 10s in Near-Eastern Archaeology, including at the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. She is a Research Associate at the University of Birmingham and an Honorary Senior Research Associate at UCL.

 

 

Myriam Yakoubi

The question of where artefacts should be kept can be a highly emotional issue, especially when they come from a territory which used to be part of a colonial empire. Even when such objects were not stolen, but exchanged or given, their removal can be seen as dispossession, leading to lasting resentment. Many countries will consider such artefacts as symbols of their national identity rather than objects belonging to the heritage of humanity as a whole.

This was also Gertrude Bell’s view when she worked on the creation of an Iraqi national museum in the early 1920s. As the League of Nations tried to build a modern nation-state out of former Ottoman provinces, Bell believed that a national museum displaying artefacts of the great civilisations which had thrived in Iraq would provide a national narrative transcending ethnic and religious divides.

However, Bell was also a British imperialist whose involvement in the Middle East had started with her love for travel, exploration and archaeology. In 1922, when she became Director of Antiquities in Iraq, she insisted that artefacts found in the country should be split between Iraq and the British Museum, whereas Iraqi ministers were opposed to the objects being removed from the country. Bell argued that this was a necessary incentive to encourage British archaeologists to dig in Iraq, which did not yet have trained professionals able to conduct excavations.

Ultimately, the halfway house that Bell devised reflected the context of the time, when dominated countries could no longer be plundered, but whose sovereignty was not yet respected enough for them to manage their heritage independently. Like today, the debates about the location of artefacts reflect the power struggles of the time.

 

Myriam Yakoubi is a Senior Lecturer in British Studies and a Member of the CAS Research Group at Jean Jaures University in Toulouse, France. She works on British Imperialism in the Middle East in the Twentieth Century.

 

Paul Basu

Heritage and heritage institutions, such as museums, are political. Heritage is entangled in the projects of imperialists, nation-builders and despots, as well as archaeologists, conservators and curators. Archaeology, too, has been the subject of campaigns and expeditions. Excavated objects are appropriated from the past, becoming contested cultural properties in the present. But to whom do they belong? The archaeologists who uncovered them? The museum that sponsored the excavation? The community who have pastured their sheep among the ruins for centuries? The nation that was founded within living memory? Are they the heritage of humanity, of ‘universal value’, belonging to everyone – and no one? Such objects migrate. They are moved, repositioned, decontextualised and recontextualised. Maybe they will be returned to oblivion, in the safe deposit box of a private collector. Are they cosmopolitans, at home in a mobile world; or exiles longing for restitution to a homeland that may no longer exist? Where do they belong? There are no simple answers, but it is questioning that matters.

 

Paul Basu is a Professor of Anthropology at SOAS University of London.

Alternative Scenes

Version 1: Draft 2011 

The scene conveys three respective opinions about what is the ‘right thing to do’. The fact that each character advances an opposing point of view creates conflict between them and gives the scene its dramatic roots. But, are the characters as well balanced as they could be?  

Do they match each other successfully? 

Are there further details that could be added to ensure we believe the characters are speaking from the heart, and not mouthpieces for opposing arguments? 

 

Read this second draft from 2018 to see how Hannah has gone about trying to  address these questions and look out for any other changes: 

Version 2: Draft 2018

Layla is more rooted as a result, a stronger presence in the scene, and therefore her argument has a greater impact. Notice too how the scene starts with the two women in conversation, rather than with Mohammed as it does in the previous draft. As it begins, they are already mid-conversation, so it gives the impression we are just sneaking in to listen to what is naturally occurring between these people in their everyday environment. This helps to build the connection between the characters and the words they say, and the arguments feel less ‘stated’ than before.

Relationships have been developed in subtle ways too. Rather than just advance their point of view, there are moments where they speak about each other, as Ghalia does about Layla. Conflict is also delayed rather than immediately present from the start, which gives the scene a sharper sense of change when it does emerge. By delaying Mohammed’s line about the museum opening soon until later in the scene, we also benefit from a shift in rhythm and sense of urgency being injected at this point. 

Can you spot any other additions or changes that have been made that enhance a sense of place? 

In this next draft, the final draft, Hannah wanted to further explore the idea of time and to increase the theatricality of the scene. As you read it, try to  consider why Hannah has made further changes and what they add to the  experience of reading or watching the scene: 

Version 3: Draft 2020

Hannah says: ‘In the final version from 2020 the play’s two timelines had  become more entwined. So in this scene, it felt really exciting to have  Ghalia and her team discussing the fate of the statue at the same time as  

Gertrude and Woolley. To have Layla attacking Gertrude and Ghalia defending  her, while she is in the same space felt like a really powerful and theatrical way  of making the themes of the play sing.’ 

Notice how the scene begins mid-conversation, as in the previous draft, but now she pitches us straight into the heart of the argument. Things are more heated, happening more quickly and with a greater sense of pressure and urgency as a result. Layla, Mohammed and Ghalia each speak in turn at the beginning of the scene, helping the balance between them and their respective arguments. 

Hannah says it helps make the themes of the play ‘sing’. I would add that the  experience for an audience is like dancing between two worlds at once as we move deftly and fluidly from one-time frame to another. This asks more of its audience, but it is more exciting as a result. Notice how the timeframes are not  

just placed within the same scene, but directly speak to each other: as if the  characters are responding to each other despite not being able to see them.