Another roll of the dice

Snakes and ladders goes again.  Now that I have returned from India, the intention is that Hamed completes the play, adding in the section where he travels from Italy to England.  The advantage this time around is that we are being supported by WERESTart, a local arts organisation (when I say local, this means local to London; they seem to operate mainly in Brent and Camden, and were largely instrumental in co-ordinating the Refugee Week events in both those places.  The good news is that they are providing us with a rehearsal space, rather more central and convenient than the Sailing Club.  They are also keen to support us in other ways, in particular encouraging us to put in a funding bid.

The trouble with this is that I have not got the slightest idea how one might set out on such a thing, even to the point of working out what it is that we need, let alone what such a thing might cost.  It seems to me that our prime need is for an administrator, who can start to look at such things.  But an administrator costs a lot of money, and those sort of ongoing costs are exactly the type of expenditure that funding organisations are nervous of.

There are hopes that we might be able to enhance the performance, perhaps with the addition of music, perhaps with greater production values, maybe an expanded cast, but at present all of these aspirations seem a little fanciful, as it will be enough of a challenge to get the old cast together again.  Roji is still in Sheffield, while Davood is currently in Germany.  But until we have a complete working version of the script, such considerations are peripheral.  And our first attempt to enhance the musical aspect foundered when some musicians that had been recommended to us announced that (particularly without guaranteed funding) they would not be able to join with us.

For the time being, and over the past couple of weeks, we have been preparing for a smaller challenge.  Largely because Hamed and Cristina are members of Legal Aliens, a migrant theatre company based in Tottenham, we have been invited to present a short extract of our work at Welcome to Haringey, a community event  being held in Wood Green.  We decided to perform the opening scene of the play, as that makes for a manageable amount, and spent one rehearsal session, making sure swe remembered what to say.  We also had to frame it a little with a taped version of our chaotic opening with lots of voices; Hamed was also keen to include a short video section, some footage that he shot in Moria, the camp on Lesvos.

Getting to the event was something of a challenge for all of us; it also made for quite a long evening, as we had to arrive there at 5.30 for a sound and tech check, while we did not perform until 9.20 or so.  So we had quite a lot of waiting around, though that did also include dinner; everyone there was being fed.  It tookk place at a venue called Karamel, a sort of performance café with a Drama Studio/Theatre out the back… which suited all of us very well indeed.  It was, perhaps, a little shabby, but seemed to be a valuable resource, with a programme of events.  (Not that I know anything about it all really.)

The evening was worthy, a little on the dull side, but also cheering and encouraging; sometimes we get the idea that the tide of opinion about refugees is consistently negative, but events like this demonstrate that there is an alternative opinion.  Our own performance seemed to go down well with those that were left by the time we performed, and gave Hamed just that extra bit of validation; there are people who want to see what he has written.

There was a final performance after ours, which for me validated the whole thing, for it showcased a young female poet and singer.  She was rather strange in appearance and manner – I suspect there is some neurodivergency there – and she presents a striking figure, with a headscarf and hijab, but is not obviously Muslim; I wish I had had the opportunity to know more about here.  She read one poem by WH Auden, and sang, a capella, a Michael Jackson song… both were wonderful.

And so, not at all an unsuccessful venture.  The harder task will be to reinvigorate the performance process; to gather the cast, perhaps do some extra recruitment, agree on a final script, find a venue…

Nothing really.