OBEY II: The Ides of March: A Production by the Fundamentals
of Drama & Stagecraft Class written and directed by Dr. James Mirrione. 13
June, 2012, Crescent Building Auditorium, UAEU
The Drama Unit rolled out its latest production OBEY II: The
Ideas of March on an unpropitious night of pre-finals angst and pre-summer hints of increased thermonuclear activity to come that discouraged any effort, let alone the epic energies
unleashed by this multi-media Arab-English hybrid of a play. At the end of the brief theatrical work (only 45 minutes) portraying Syria’s current miseries both cast and
audience emerged moved and invigorated.
As we entered the theater venue, we were handed a small,
empty (and puzzling) envelope whose purpose would be shatteringly clear at the
end. The warm up tunes from a powerful sound system included Buffalo
Springfield’s 60’s anthem Field Day for the Heat. A good choice I thought.
Obey II threw at the audience an expertly combined flurry of
events and impressions accompanied by a heavy rock beat and effective lighting
that bathed scenes of Syrian anguish in appropriately garish tints; on double
side screens, newsreels from Syria (demonstrators and atrocities from the
country in question) unrolled while stage center featured a series of skits
depicting the tragedy of one Syrian boy who is arrested for sedition, tortured
and killed (based on an actual character Hamzan Ali Alkhateeb).
Rather than trying crudely to mime this tragedy, Mirrione
& students took a symbolic approach. Hamzan’s crime is drawing a picture of
a Pegasus (a winged horse), which is condemned by the angry tyrant (Basil Muir)
as a thought crime. The back projected image (drawn by the actor Fatima Kindi
who played Hamzan) becomes a symbol of human freedom. To make sure we get the
connection, documentary photos of the boy are seen on the sides.
In one of the best vignettes (modeled on the Greek chorus of
chant and reply), we witness the Syrians ”waking up” to the necessity of
contesting their freedom as each emerges from the crowd and recounts her
personal tragedy usually of family loss by dictatorial violence. A spectator
Mona Al Hamed later told me she had been moved by this scene and cried. A
satirical touch occurs in an “eye test” ordered by the tyrant in which, from
the scrambled test letters, the subjects all read “O...B....E....Y!”
The last scene however tops all by a simple yet powerful
device. The Narrator (played by Norah Tamimi) tells us she is going to read out
the names of all the children killed in the conflict and asks the audience to
pull out the envelope given at the door. She then reads the list of all of the
names of children killed in the conflict. By means of this well-planned
strategem, everyone in the audience is drawn into the public act of
condemnation the play has worked so hard to achieve. We spectators were as
impressed by the humanity of the gesture as its ingenuity.
(The name on mine was Mahmud Swaid and I still feel badly
for not reading it out – maybe this will expunge my guilt!)
Last year’s pioneering OBEY was based on the 14 days that it
took to dislodge a former Egyptian president from office; the strong plot line
was that of the (now legendary) Tunisian vegetable vendor Mohamed Bouazizi, whose
suicide gave the story instant recognition and impacted powerfully all who saw
it. The Syrian conflict on the other hand offers daily atrocities but no such legends. Mirrione and students as if aware of this, chose a mixture of
indirect, symbolic and chorale forms of expression.
The nervous rhythm of the production came out of the deep
theater culture of James Mirrione whose work is rooted in Greek drama, Brecht
and a dash of 60’s street theater. And not to forget Shakespeare. The decision
to add (readings from) Julius Caesar to the mix, was probably his as well, and
is the only dubious part of the play, which in my opinion distracted from the
central point. He defended his choice by pointing out that the young boy subject
of the play had been killed on March 15, the “Ides of March” of the subtitle. A
strictly aesthetic critique of the play however would miss the point. This was
a community effort with a social message.
This was revealed most clearly in a brief chat with the cast
after the play. Their faces glowing from praise by their director, who
congratulated them as “the true authors of the play” and for their outstanding
work, not only on that evenings work but in “planting the seeds for the future
of the arts” at the university, they all expressed satisfaction in
participating in something truly significant.
“I learned what it’s really like for people in another
country who we see only in the news...” said one (Nouf). Fatima al Kindi who
played The Boy described her research into his actual life and death. Norah al
Tamimi (the Narrator) said that for her the message of the play was “to show
people who are living in a safe country how other people are suffering to have
their own rights.”
The production was also amazing in terms of uniting cross-campus-energies -- first of course those of the enthusiastic, hardworking cast
of 20, but one also needs to add (and congratulate) the strong poster design
(Jake Gilson) and campaign, the professional sound and lights technical team, part-time
actors from English Basil Muir & Graeme Tennent and, finally, major input
by the “Organizers” an official university group dedicated to making things
happen on campus. As we know, the permissions required to get people and events
on and off campus are truly awesome. -JD
