Performing Veiled Monologues by Nazmiye OralNieuwegein. A small town in the south of Holland. We’re all upset and nobody really feels like acting tonight. In the dressing room I’m hastily working on a speech, something to say before the play. We have a full house tonight. Before the curtain goes up, we stand on stage in a line, as we do at the curtain call. I read the text: ‘Good evening. U are here. Thank you. Today Theo van Gogh was brutally assassinated. The mayor of Amsterdam, Mister Cohen, has called on everyone to bring pots and pans down to the Dam Square in Amsterdam, to make as much noise as possible. To honor Theo van Gogh and the noisy troublemaker he used to be. We have decided to do that here this evening. We came to make noise from the heart. If we can touch each other's hearts, then there’s hope.’
Language seems more then just a vehicle on this night. The real feelings seep through. The audience reaches forward, as one big body. The whole theater is electrified. I wish I could catch this energy on film. The Northern Lights.
In the days after November 2, 2004, when Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was assassinated by a young Muslim fundamentalist from a Moroccan background, the whole country was shaken to its core. To perform in this play during this difficult time, with the country in crisis and fear, was challenging.
On the one hand there’s no time to give in to the desire to stand still, to return to the source, to search for answers. On the other hand the necessity to tell these stories proves to be a vital one. People were deeply affected by this murder and seemed confused. A lot of them also felt the wish to reach out to each other and not let this event divide the country in two: the Muslims and the Dutch people.
But mostly they did not know what to think about Muslims and Islam anymore.
Fear seeped into people’s hearts and even into the theatre.
Sometimes after the show someone from the audience would ask us, “Aren’t you afraid of playing this piece?” I would answer with a counter question: “Do you think this piece is provocative?” “No, I thought it was beautiful, but…” “Thank you.”
You can let the fear affect you and you go mad, or you can push it aside and move on.
Until, one night at the theatre, you see a boy sitting in the audience. A dark-haired boy, an Arab, undeniably from a Muslim background. You realize that’s strange. With this play it’s rare that men come to the show, let alone a young man all by himself and certainly not a young Arabic man. For one second you hope he’s not alone. The performance hasn’t started yet. Maybe his companion has gone to the toilet or is getting something to eat. You see a woman sitting next to him and you hope they’ll talk. They don’t. The boy sees you staring and starts looking around him, uncomfortably. A decision must be made. What to do? Just before the lights in the audience fade, you decide to tell the house manager. The performance starts. Suddenly you see people walking through the balcony with flashlights. Blond people, looking for something. You can’t think any more. How are they going to protect you from the balcony if this boy is sitting down there, in the audience? You continue the performance, thousands of thoughts running through your mind. “Why is this boy sitting at the back near the exit? So that he can run away quickly? Why has he come to the play? To see for himself whether we’re traitors, selling out on our own religion? If something might happen, could I make it behind the curtain with a single jump?” After a while the whole thing becomes unbearable. It is too bizarre. You accept. “Let it come! I can’t escape anyway. And I will act wonderfully, goddammit!”
This boy, we later found out, was a high school student. He was Muslim from a Turkish background. He was assigned to see a play for a grade. The rest of his class was off to Ali B. a rapper with a theatre show. He had chosen our play, because he liked theatre and because he was curious. The theatre’s artistic director asked him on his way out what he thought of the play. He replied, “beautiful and courageous.” This reply smacked our brains back into our heads and made us realize how we had become infected by collective fear.
Sometimes events like this are necessary to make us recognize the undercurrent of fear and prejudice that has sneaked into our being. Poisoning us. I have found that there’s only one thing a person can do in order to cleanse himself from the poison of fear. It is beautifully put in this Sufi parable:
A grandfather is pensively sitting on the couch. His grandchild asks him, “Grandfather, you look so worried, what’s the matter?” The grandfather answers, “I have two dogs that are fighting in my heart.” The child asks, “What are the names of these dogs, Grandpa?” “Hate and love.” “The child looks up anxiously. ”Grandpa, who do you think is going to win?” The grandfather answers: “The one that I feed.”
Nazmiye Oral performs in The Veiled Monologues. She is a writer/columnist for the Dutch national newspaper De Volkskrant.
Adelheid Roosen is a remarkable performer, director and designer from Holland. From 1986-1988,
Roosen made a live television show, Vara's Late Night Show, a provocative series on life in the
Netherlands. In 1988 she won the Proscenium Prize for Tergend Langzaam Wakker Worden(Waking Up Painstakingly
Slowly) based on the play Clara S. by Elfride Jelinek. After that she based her solo performances on
novels by Clarice Lispector and Franz Xavier Kroetz, enriched with her own text material and design.
As a result of one of these performances, Van Top Tot Teen Te Trillen (From Head to Toe Trembling),
Eckart Wintzen of Ben & Jerry’s Europe invited her to become a member of this firm’s Non-Executive
Board.Ms. Roosen continued making performances for and with others. She now regularly writes or co-writes her own pieces. In Holland the performance Broos (Vulnerable) with four other actresses had tremendous success and was made into a movie. For this movie, she received the Gouden Kalf (Golden Calf) award, the main national film award in the Netherlands.
Together with thirteen female singers/performers all from different countries, she developed the theatrical concert Female Factory, highlighting performers from all over the world, which sold out many nights in an 1,800-seat theatre in Amsterdam. With these concerts, she also produced a short tour in Moscow and Barcelona. The same year she made the theatre play Vijf Op Je Ogen (Five on Your Eyes) with four young Muslim women actors.
As part of The Suite, a master class for classical - modern music, she was director of four small concerts for Theatre De IJsbreker (2000-2005). Ms. Roosen was one of the performers in the Dutch version of The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler. From that, she developed the concept of Veiled Monologues (2003), which successfully toured Holland, Belgium, Berlin, Turkey/Ankara. She was invited to festivals in Egypt and Jordan with her theatre script as a focal point. Veiled Monologues was performed in a nationwide televised version in Dutch parliament at the height of one of the debates on constitutional rights regarding religious minorities in Holland in 2003. She also played Portia in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.
Her latest play, Is.Man, tells about Honor Killings by immigrant males in the Netherlands. For this purpose, she interviewed offenders in prisons, family members of these men, police officers and Ministry of Justice officials.