:: Monday, June 2– Scene List 2::

Workshops 9 – 10
Tuesday May 20

Saturday May 24Well it’s almost coming to an end team…..we’ve shared some very special moments already and we only have four workshops left after today (Tuesday May 24) to go….
For some strange reason you guys were certainly ‘super’ high energy this evening…rowdy…. And a little out of control at times even….. what it was, I don’t know but it was definitely a very LOUD workshop to say the least.

And, we meet Mojgan today. She seems so lovely and I am sure she will whip up a script that will ‘super’ impress us! So to get the ball rolling, TJ explains the writing exercise…’Last Saturday, you wrote about a break-up in a relationship…. Tonight I want you to write about a moment before this break-up that either led to it or was related to it in some way…. And then write about a moment after this break-up that is related in some way….’

Now I have to tell you, form the very beginning I knew Wazza had a special talent and his cool-Mr. Suave demenour was definitely on show here… Youssef is a young guy sitting on a train thinking out aloud (his thought’s were connected to Nomise’s break-up story form last week – he was playing the character Nomise developed). He is kicking himself for questioning his girlfriend and upsetting her, but he’s doing it out aloud….and then it happens – WAZZA SHINES LIKE A STAR HERE…. He slips into the character of the distressed passenger, annoyed by Youssef’s constant swearing and obnoxious behaviour. Of course, Wazza says something – very smoothly in that slick Wazza style and they enter an argument. The scene ends beautifully with Youssef preventing a punch up by saying to Wazza – "Fuck off, you’re lucky this is Sydnenham mate" – Sydneham being Youssef’s stop and he is implying that if he wasn;t getting off, there would have been punches and Wazza would have been sorry…. The dynamic between Wazza and Youssef was fantastic. They held their characters with precision…they were almost too believable!

We all got a shock when Julie’s scene was performed. In this scene Julie’s entire family…Mum, Dad, brothers are consoling her because she has just broken up with her boyfriend. Half of the group are not allowed to have boyfriends and girlfriends, let alone talk about it openly with their parents and have the entire family console you when there’s a problem. So it is a shock that she could do that and there is a little scepticsm as to how true this story is, but Julie re-assured us that it was all legitimte and as it happened….. a fine performance from Amanda, Hashem, Mohammed and Anthiny here too!

And, what did I tell you last week…..remember I said I was smelling the religion debate about to spark…well I was right – it did!

From watching some of the scenes performed it seems that religion is a major debacle in relationships even when your only 17! Obviously, we’re all aware of the taboo’s associated with inter-religious, inter-racial marriage and the like, for example a Muslim girl marrying a Christian guy or vice versa, Through the stories of the crew, however we’ve come to realize that it affects some a great deal more than others and it all depends on your parents. It’s even a major thing for some of our parents if within Islam, the guy and girl that want to be together are not from the same Muslim sect. For example if the guy is ‘Allawi’ and the girl is ‘Seni’, then it may not be possible for them to get their parents approval to marry. This is not the case for everyone of course. It’s definitely a religious thing but I think it’s more about how much young people want to please their parents and do ‘the right thing’ by what their religion tells them, and in turn what their parents expect from them…. I’m saying ‘them’ her because I don’t fit into this world. I am Christian and my parents never really forced religion upon me, so I have never had issues of having to be with someone from the same cultural and/ or religious background… We have many expectations placed on us by our parents, some we can agree with because it makes us who we are and proud of our culture and others we battle with because love is a strong emotion and it sometimes takes over any morals or vales that we have been grounded with as kids in our culture.

Anyway, I’ll leave you to think about that one and make your own assumptions. One thing you shouldn’t assume though is that religion is what rules our lives or our culture within the Arabic speaking community….it’s there just like in any other culture and for some it is more important than others. It is about personal, family and moral choice all in one I think…and that’s hard!
Speaking of hard….. Saturday’s workshops was very and I mean very STRANGE. We’ve spent a whole lot of time looking at the ‘reality’ of our everyday lives, but what about the imaginal space that we exist in…..our dreams, our sub-conscious? Today, TJ asks the crew to share an ‘action’ dream and perform it as a dream sequence.

I’m sitting here looking over my notes and I have to say it is almost impossible for me to make a cohesive sentence out of this workshop because it was all so ‘flighty’….you know bits and pieces….. flashes and time lapses…. Aside from the amazingly beautiful physicality of every single one of the dreams we shared together, there is one thing that is certainly apparent. When the crew was asked to share a dream or aspiration and to perform it as a dream…. there was an element of wanting to be successful and famous in almost every scene performed…. As Ahmad says, "we all want to be famous and the closest you can get to that is to dream about it". Well you know what Ahmad I disagree…you don’t have to just dream about it because it’s going to happen one day! All of the drive, determination and passion you show us every week will get you there and I can’t wait to see that – I know I’ll see your name up in lights one day habib!

:: Patrick 2:15 PM [+] :: ...