Shayek’s ‘ode to mums is a feast’
PLAY EXPLORES THE STRUGGLES OF BANGLADESHI WOMEN DURING WAR
TARA Theatre’s artistic director, Abdul Shayek, has said his new play is an “ode to mums” as the production marks the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh becoming an independent sovereign nation.
To celebrate the victory of the 1971 war with Pakistan – which was marked by incidents of violence and oppression – the Tara Theatre in Wandsworth, south-west London, last Wednesday (15) held an intimate Dawaat – meaning ‘feast’ – for the senses.
Shayek told Eastern Eye, “I lost my mom last year, so this [play] is an ode to mums who gave up so much for their children. Not just moms, but dads as well. That generation left (Bangladesh) and came here, a cold and bitter place; they left everything because they wanted to make sure that their children had an opportunity to do things they couldn’t.”
Dawaat is a play about the struggles and hardships Bangladeshi women faced before and during the height of the war. “It’s about the nests they [parents] build and the pain they feel when their children leave and that’s really, for me, what’s really beautiful,” Shayek said.
“But, equally, from the other side of the coin, it’s about children and how they understand the cliché, what the parents have given up in order to give them what they have.”
Shayek said the idea was conceived because the first generation of migrants showed their love through food and by sharing it with the ones they loved.
He said: “There was something about food that was really important in terms of that generation, the inter-generation conversation and (that got me) thinking about how we can put all that together and make the piece of work that enables us to have the food, the conversations between the generations, and then obviously, the music and the poetry, because Bangladeshis have such a rich history of poetry. “It was really important to kind of get that part in.”
Dawaat has three protagonists – Sohini Alam plays Bangla; Leesa Gazi plays Fatima, the mother, and Halema Hussain, who plays Maya, the daughter. Hussain, 26, who is from London, told Eastern Eye, “I think the beautiful thing about the play is that it translates across all communities, regardless of colour. I think everyone can relate to it; I personally can.”
Her character Maya portrays the struggles of the third generation British Bengalis in the UK.
Maya fights to accept a job she gets offered abroad and the play seeks to challenge the stereotype of girls from south Asian families not being allowed to pursue the career they want.
Hussain said, “My mum didn’t want me to do anything creatively. Initially, I too didn’t want to, I aspired to be a lawyer. I really was into academia. It was through drama, and my first lesson of expressive arts that I could really work through all the trauma and all the hardships I experienced growing up.”
Towards the end of the play, Maya’s mother Fatima realises that the home is built for her children to flourish and one day they will have to leave the nest. Hussain said, “I think one of the big things about this is that it sheds light on a different perspective that we don’t necessarily see – the media often portrays traits and stereotypes that kind of reflect negatively, especially on south Asian women, and this challenges that head on.”
One of the challenges director Shayek, who is from east London, was framing the conversations about south Asian girls and women being held back from realising their potential.
He said, “Often, when we speak about women in a patriarchal society and community, they are critical conversations we’ve had for a long time and will continue to have. But it was about how we phrase it in a way that enabled us to not be aggressive with it, to tell that story in a way that isn’t pointing a finger.”
Shayek added: “There is a comment about the community and how the community need to shift their thoughts and how they shift their stances, shift the thinking around the next generation. But equally, I don’t think we do it aggressively in the play, I think it started in a very human, and very beautiful way, because I think the music helps us to do that.”
On the representation of south Asians in theatre, Shayek said, “A lot of south Asian work gets caught up in nostalgia and gets caught up in a particular kind of narrative, which is about a point in history that we want to talk about.
“The biggest challenge around south Asian talent in the sector is finding those new narratives that we can really present in a way that goes beyond just an appeal to the south Asian community, but the broader, more universal theatregoing audience.”
Shayek expressed his hope to take plays like Dawaat to take Manchester, Birmingham, Bradford and Leicester. He said: “We have a project called Amma next year, which is working with older women from the Bangladeshi community. We will collect their stories, and then turn it into a virtual reality experience. Audiences can then put on headsets and get transported to the memories these women have been sharing.”