Dates: Tuesday 29th Jan - Saturday 16th Feb
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With the start of the Arab Spring in December 2010 a new blogger captured the owrld's attention, Gay Girl In Damascus. Amina Arraf was a young American-Syrian woman whose had returned to Damascus with her family as they wanted to be part of building a new Syria. Her blogs were fiesty and a sweet mix of the universal, cultural specifics and politics.
The re-enactment
of 'practising kissing with your best friend until the right boy came along'
went down particularly well and explaining that becoming more religous actually
gave her more freedom - a combination of gender segregation and who knows who
is doing what to whom in a burkha.
Frankly Gay Girl In Damascus for practically
every liberal message you could think of and very savvy with her use of social
media to get her messageof equality across whether it be gender, LGBT or the
right to live in a democracy.
Except for one thing. She isn't real. There is no
Amina Arraf, no Gay Girl In Damascus but there is Tom in America. A writer who,
after yet another rejection slips analyses his writing and discovers he can't
dialogue. He decided to start a blog as blogs are essentially a conversation
between the blogger, their computer and anyone else who happens to chip in.
Having grown up in a liberal household with a far deeper understanding of the
Middle East than most he writes about the issues he k nows best and cares
deeply about choosing to write in a female voice as he believed that what he
wanted to say would sound better from a woman. He didn't expect it to get much
attention. It goes stratospheric and he can't get out of the fiction he is
created until it all crashes around him.
For all that writer Omar El-Khairy has beautifully described
the life and politcs of Amina who does not exist, this is a play about how do know what is real in the digital age. The internet means we can instantly chat
to people across the globe. On the positive side blogs often give emotional
support, Twitter can help you find that missing cat and both can be a voice for
political expression in an oppressive country but how do we know that the
person who says they are Gay Girl In Damascus is really that? Essentially Tom
has accidentally groomed the worl in the way a paedophile will groom a child.
There is an emsemble cast of five, three of whom are a
chorus and play the collective internet voice, Amina's family and friends and
the security forces, the leads are Lara Sawalha and Simon Darwen who also
doubles up his roles at times. That El-Khairy is a graduate of various young
writer schemes including the Royal Court is no surprise. This is an
intelligent, thoughtful piece and the cast failed to put a foot wrong which is
quite something on a first preview. My one criticism of the piece - one that I
make of new writing is that in an attempt to appeal to a young audience too
many tricks are squeezed in.
Between the double up and a complex structure
moving backwards and forwards in time I occassionally wondered which character
was speaking however you will not have to be taking notes for a review at the
same time! This is an incredible intelligent, thought provoking production
which deserves a much wider audience than it is likely to receive.
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