James MacFarlane talks with Ahmed Masoud about his play The Shroud Maker.
We can laugh like you. And we often cry, like no one else
Ahmed, what is the story of the The Shroud Maker?
The Shroud Maker is a play that shows the humanity of Palestinians through a personal account of a woman who is very much like so many others struggling in the face of Israeli occupation. Hajja Souad is a survivor of decades of injustice, first during the Nakba as a young girl in 1948, then throughout the 1967 war and 1973 and all the way up to 2014. She is Palestine and Palestine is her.
Did you write this play as a direct response to events in the Middle East or was it something you'd had in mind to write for some time?
I wrote the play in response to the 2014 war on Gaza which lasted 51 days and over 2300 Palestinians were killed. I saw an interview with a shroud-maker in Jabalia Camp in Gaza where I grew up. She had her shop open despite the Israeli bombardment. When the local journalist asked her why she still had her shop open, she responded, "I don't give a shit". It made me laugh a lot during a very difficult night of heavy bombardment in my neighbourhood and when I couldn't get hold of my family. I didn't know if they were alive or not and I didn't want to sleep, so I started imaging this woman's life and how she got there. Many months later I went back to Gaza and I met her, but she wasn't in her best mental situation and couldn't give me a lot of details. So I carried on with my imagination, loosely piecing some stories she told me from her life.
You describe the play as a black comedy. Was it difficult to weave moments of comedy into a tragic story?
The tragic thing about the situation in Palestine is that it is so ridiculous. Future generations will laugh at us for not being able to have peace there. People in Gaza have an amazing sense of humour, which is why they tend to laugh a lot. Jokes are told in every family gathering and situation. Comedy does well when life is hard; it is a way of coping. For me, I didn't want to write something in order for the audience to laugh but to get closer to our culture and how we look at things, in a very sarcastic way. Comedy reaches people quicker and makes the tragic more digestible.
What’s the reaction been to the piece so far?
The best reaction I had was when we did a reading of it in Gaza. People loved it. Young students were in awe of how this woman represented their mothers, their aunts and families. It was also chosen to be one of the plays that truly represent Palestinian women in an international theatre exhibition at the University in Gaza. I was very proud.
I had a mix of reactions in the UK, in between tragic silence and a flow of tears after in a performance in Milton Keynes attended by many ex military British personnel who served under the British mandate in Palestine, to roaring laughter in Dublin.
Is there a specific message that you want audiences to take from this piece?
Yes, please remember that we can laugh like you. And we often cry, like no one else.
