 Juan, and your line. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Segal Talks here from the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at the Graduate Center CUNY and the City University of New York from New York. And this is week two of our Segal Talks. We ask our friends, our artists and collaborators, people we look up to to join in and let us know how they create meaning out of this time of corona we live in. We feel it's important to have a space to think and to also reflect on what theater now is all about. Everything that makes theater theater is gone. We don't have space. We don't have money. We can't get together. So it's one of the hardest hit communities in the sense when it comes to work and it's also a time in a way for reflection. We had fantastic collaborators speaking already to us. In the very beginning it was Taylor Mac and Kristen Martin on the HEA Arts Center. Taylor's great project, TrickleUpNYC.org where he created a platform within a week or 10 days. It's unbelievable. Well over 50 New York artists created content that had been looked at. All you have to do, give $10 a month, a little bit like a Netflix idea and the money really 100% goes to the artist and this is interesting important work from New York writers, directors and playwrights and thinkers and performance artists. It's great. We went online to talk with people from China and Hong Kong who told us about the situation where it was a little bit easing in China. Han Shen said, he never thought that cyber space is real but now it is real. It's that what connects him to the outside world and Mark Chiu-Yua talked about Hong Kong and the fight that is also still waiting. He says, you think Corona crisis, you get over and everything goes on but for us, other things are waiting and I guess perhaps also this is in the Middle East. But the reason, Thomas Ostermeyer from Berlin joined us in and he reminded us to stay sober as he said. He said not to look into any meaning that an Old Testament God is striking back to mankind and that we are punished for something is that it's chaotic. There's no sense to all of this and we have to prepare. Take the time, we told artists, take the time to prepare, theaters will open. So be better prepared and do something. He teaches also at the University. We had then Armana Montenari and Marco Martinelli from the Alban Italy who gave us an update for, I think, four or five weeks now, they stay at home, don't leave their house, they can only go three minutes onto their market space, buy things, go back, most of them said they live like monks and they get up at 12 noon, eat, work eight hours a day, read, do serious work and eat again and then watch films for three, four hours till two or three in the night. And then Toshiki Okada, the great Japanese thinker director, writer, who was so deeply already affected by the Fukushima disaster told about his life. He had already moved his family out of Tokyo because he thought disasters will not end. They will come again. His work has been stopped also. He worked a lot in Germany at the Munich Kammerspiele. He's actually working right now on a play of a young designer who created this Olympic stadium for the Tokyo Olympics and she died. The design was rejected and she comes back as a ghost and talks to everyone and he says he's disappointed in his government. He does not feel anything will happen, but he also says it's a time of reflection for him. It's a time to think, to write. There's like a field where you need to let it rest or to air it, but nobody of us has chosen this but a theater artist always has adapted to things like this. Right now we have three extraordinary artists from the Middle East, from Egypt and from Lebanon. We have La'ila Suleiman, who's here from Egypt, a clay prayerite. She was at the Siegel Center and our director highly respected internationally. Also Sahar Amasaf, who is from Lebanon from Beirut where she does extraordinary theater work at the American University in Beirut but also in the town herself. She did a great documentary plays on Syrian women who were abused and forced them to prostitution. It was all for one or two years going on in the center of Beirut and nobody did anything. And she did a very courageous production and the work has been dividing and chounds around the site-specific work. And then we have also Dalia Bassoni, who is a great thinker of theater and academic but also a playwright, the director and a community activist who has followed the Egyptians over a long, long time, a journalist also. So we have all of them here with us to get an in little view of what's happening there. So please do excuse me, my long opening monologue, but each day it gets longer because we have more people coming just to acknowledge it. While we're talking, people are under respirators in hospitals all around the world, especially also in New York City. People are dying as we speak with the virus, perhaps not just because of it, but with it and speed. So how is the mood? What are people thinking? And maybe we start with Dalia, since you have faces on the screen right now there. What's going on in Cairo? Tell us a bit about the mood on the street. I haven't talked in a while, so forgive me where I find my words. I live alone in a farm outside of Cairo, so I only use my dog voice most of the time. I live with a few dogs. The situation in Egypt has different facets and Lila can add to this in her turn. There is a curfew part of the day starting 7 p.m. So movement is not allowed and from 7 p.m. till 6 in the morning. And there's a police enforcing that and restricting movement. Meanwhile, some companies are forcing their workers to go to work and the construction business is pushing for the workers to be at work, building new luxury condominiums out in the desert. So it's a very, very fascinating tension, somehow being asked to stay at home and self-isolate while many people can't afford to not go to work because they earn their living on a daily basis. So if they don't go to work, they starve. So you're caught between a rock and a hard place and I die if I don't go to work, I die if I go to work. So this tension is really active in big parts of the society while some people have the luxury of self-isolate or work from home and in many situations people have been fired from their work because their companies are not acting responsibly against them. So it's a really difficult, challenging, intense time. And our artists, of course, are hit, but society at large is dealing with something that they have not dealt with to this extent before. Laila, maybe you can tell us a little bit more about this. I guess you're more perhaps in the center of Cairo. A friend of mine told me that for the first time in a thousand years, mosques have been closed. Yeah. So tell us a bit, Laila, what is the mood on the street? What do people think about it? So during the day, everybody can walk out and just in the evening they go back. Is that true? During the day, everybody can go out. The government advises anybody who can stay at home to stay at home. But I think the tension has to do also with the political state of when do people listen and when don't they listen? Especially if they're used to the person giving them orders, not always having transparent policies for their best. So it's very confusing, especially when curfew came, there were a lot of different political opinions about the enforcing of a curfew. And what that means in public opinion. And also does it- Do well or not? Yeah, can you say again? I think we just lost you for a moment. Whether enforcing a curfew will be sort of another seized opportunity by an autocratic state to enforce a lot of things or not. And also whether the people will listen to it just because it's a curfew or will they understand the measures that are needed to somehow pass that situation of slowing the curve. The other issue is also I think with income like in a place like Egypt where there are general hygienic questions and also especially with difficulties of infrastructure like still in places in the countryside there's a difficulty with water and certain means. So it's also quite complex with the literacy rates with how in general mass media is dealing with the situation to kind of grasp what reactions it will have because the government was quite late in reinforcing certain measures. Just giving very mixed messages through mass media on the one level scaring people and of the fact that there is a pandemic and so on. But on the other hand you see there are meetings where they are quite close together or only two weeks ago I think they stopped the collective prayers but until then weekly masses or the collective prayer on Friday was aired on public TV. So how can you on the one hand scare people of Corona and give them instructions on what to do and what not to do and advise them before the curfew to stay home. But on the other hand then continue with all of these government meetings and governmental decisions to continue airing collective prayers and so on. So I think that messages were quite mixed as well as enforcing then at the end kind of the power of the state and then also the people on the street on the one hand are very nervous on the other hand but are also kind of ignoring or taking it lightly the virus. So I think it's quite confused. Yeah it is especially saying all day you can go just in the night but most people at home anyway it doesn't sound like a real instruction for the public to keep them safe and to keep them away from harm. So how is the situation on the streets of Beirut which are normally so bustling. It's hard to even cross the street with all the motorbikes and the cars and the people and the bars and all of it. Beirut which is a greater town in the Middle East but where you open one also. So how does it look now? Yeah, hi Frank, hi everyone. I think it's the situation here is I guess like everywhere else. We've been on lockdown since early March. I remember my last rehearsal session was scheduled for March 9th and never took place. Although the week before I was also quarantining at home and holding rehearsals at home. For the past few days you know although the numbers are dropping the numbers of infected cases are actually dropping but everything is still shut down. The airport is shut schools, universities, theaters everything basically except for pharmacies and food stores. The authorities are also imposed curfew all day or just night. Well, you see this is the same situation didn't make sense to me at first it was from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. the next morning and then just yesterday they announced a new measure and that is if you have an even number with your car plate you can you know you can commute on certain days and if you have an odd number you know your car plate ending in an odd number you commute on other days. So you still see movement on the streets but basically everything is shut down so people are actually commuting probably from one place to another you know to the food stores to pharmacies to hospitals. Few people today the Minister of Interior was saying that around 20% of the Lebanese are not respecting the safety measures that the authorities are trying to impose and he's planning to escalate these measures and the penalties basically if people don't respect because the situation is you know, unprecedented we've never like Lebanon per se has witnessed so many difficult situations throughout its short history but this is- Civil war, right? Yeah, I mean- You grew up in there right? It's a little funny my father this morning was saying and my father is 85 and has been has lived through many different wars and he was saying that this is harder than any war that he has lived through it's not something anyone has experienced before so the feeling, the mood is quite overwhelming it's you know, it's my friend called this my colleague called this on Facebook collective trauma and I wholeheartedly agree I feel it in my you know in my every cell it's scary, it's sad as you said people are dying you know the whole world suddenly feels so connected we're connected in our humanity and we're in the same boat at the same time obviously some people are more privileged than others and it's sad it's just a sad fact that people are in some places people are not being able to fight this so it's quite tough here like everywhere What were your rehearsing in March, early March? We were practicing for Faithful and Her Friends a play by Maria Irene Fornes a feminist text from the 70s which seemed suitable in the appropriate right now nothing is making sense nothing seems like a good story to tell but that's what we were planning to perform in April actually the play was scheduled to be performed last November and we had to postpone due to the Lebanese October 17 revolution and now again we're postponing so I don't know if we're going to end up actually doing this play or not but for now we stopped the rehearsals obviously for safety of everyone Thank you, Dalia what do you hear from your artist friends in Egypt? I know you are in contact with so many and how does it affect you personally? There was a festival schedule to happen in March it was the first time to have the ISIS Women Theatre Festival and of course it was canceled and the disappointment in the circles the people who were organizing that festival was pretty intense like they were for a couple of years to try to gather artists from all over the world and to have women's stories be told in Egypt so that was one of the many things that was postponed indefinitely or indefinitely for now there's a lot of frustration but also what Sahar was saying the sense of a collective trauma we're all in this together we don't understand what is it and how it's really affecting us as individuals as a community yet because we're in the midst of it or maybe we're in the beginning of it hopefully we'll see the light of the end of the tunnel nobody really knows what would be the next step or how to prepare or as Sahar is saying what kind of stories do we tell now and can we do something theatrical when we're not in the same physical space together some artists are creating online things they aired a theater festival they called it the International Theater Festival in Egypt where people can watch plays online but I don't think it deserves the title or the name because it's very different kind of format it's watching a play on your screen maybe on your phone or whatever so the frustration is high and some people are still planning for things to happen hopefully in the summer or in the fall but nobody really knows so this sense of complete lack of control is paralyzing a lot of people posing a lot of questions and at the moment no answers so tell us a little bit about you as someone who normally is enjoys going out being in contact with women are you alone on your small farm or property how does your day look like when you get up what do you do and do you do artistic work or what's going on I created a play based on like three monologues by three women earlier in the year and I was in rehearsals and I got I postponed it for other reasons and I was thinking the last few days maybe we can rehearse from from our homes since we can't communicate via Zoom I don't know what does that mean for a performance later on but I've been in that's with the actresses and they were saying yes please save us from the tick tock world because this is where they are sending their creative energy for now I have great plans to finish texts and search other texts but unfortunately I'm not capable of doing that part yet and I'm sending a lot of my energy to gardening and putting a lot of seeds in the ground the weather just won't enough for me to do that so at least we will have food at the other end of it but I want to create more and I want to do some more writing and then I look at my computer every day but I'm not able to cross that barrier yet but gardening I can push myself to do that I'm planting seeds for the future yeah yeah it's also Thomas Ostermeyer who said he felt he's been hit or you know like a football player on a field and you are still numb you can't really get up he was used to a numb that it will it will take about Toshiki Okada for his work he actually does online rehearsal one on one and he said I never wanted to do that but he said it's interesting in a way the actor now has the same space as he has so he feels maybe there's a democratization going on that something will will will change he says but so to prepare for it so Laila what are you doing but do you live and how does your day look like how do you engage I'm staying with my partner so I feel very lucky in such times not to be alone because I understand that for a lot of people that's part of what's difficult in these times is the complete aloneness the confinement the lack of freedom to move and to possibly be completely deprived of touch even handshakes which I think is part of what makes this crisis all over the world more difficult other of course than the people suffering and dying from it and also depending on the privilege like Sahara and Dalia mentioned I think I'm like everybody else busy with doing a lot of housework and cleaning and cooking enjoying time with my partner and dog I'm still doing the work that I was supposed to do physically virtually which is workshopping for the creation of a new opera docu-fictive based on the novel of Novel Sadewi Woman at point zero combined with documentary material filmed with women who killed their husbands in prison in Egypt and although I objected it was interesting because I had objected in the planning of this process with the producer against online workshopping and I insisted that we all physically meet the filmmaker the libertist and the composer at least to begin the process collectively physically in one space and now we had to cut that short in Belgium and three of us that are in Egypt in different houses and one is still in London so I think it's interesting for me because it forced me to think again about how things will continue since it was something that I refused very consciously and that I still do not favor for different reasons like to completely base creative processes in online virtual existence at a distance the other thing is that I'm supposed to start rehearsals in May for a very intimate interactive piece which is a fake living room piece where there's a Sudanese coffee ceremony that is shared and I really wonder not only if that will happen because it hasn't been officially cancelled but it's also again forcing me to think how will the next year and a half or two years look like does this will this be realistic and reasonable or do we have to rethink in what do we do as artists who have been fighting for a slower pace in life also resisting virtual and online work completely in relation to our creative practices but also as an independent Egyptian theater maker who only works through making theater it has been a necessity to travel a lot and work in other parts of the world whether it's to gain a living by touring or answer to commissions so how will that continue in the next again according to research year year and a half and even if it's not even if I mean within the current political global structures even if sort of medicine or vaccination is found it's still not going to be equally distributed in all parts of the world realistically so also which again will bring up for me brings up new question of when will freedom of mobility return because it will mean new regulations concerning quarantines for all of especially the global south countries which are kind of later catching up with europe and the states in their curves so by the time these are kind of passing certain waves the others will be catching up realistically so what will that mean how is your support fried you do get support from government what have people continued their commission I mean there was a case I think in new york theaters that singleton knowledge and others said they have been commissioned by a theater and the theater said we're not going to pay you even though they started work because the play is not happening of course I think that's outrageous but how is the situation how will you survive what will you do and how do you make a living now or what's what are your plans will you get support from somewhere I'm personally lucky enough to have enough savings and also for the one of the partners I've worked with to have offered to pay at least a part of the money based on the work that's been done um but I understand that it might mean that continuation of work might be cancelled and that I might not work for the next year that you will not have work in time for the next year will the Egyptian government if I don't travel I don't think I'll have work will there be some help from a government or from the state of Egypt do you think I don't think so I they offered all what's been said now is for people and they'll correct me if I'm wrong for people who earn their daily bread to ask for a support of 300 or 500 pounds 500 pounds 500 pounds um in case they cannot if their livelihood is affected you were smiling when I said will that be any support what's your $25 basically $25 about $30 to be exact and one time only not regular so one time payment of $30 and it's going to be very difficult to get that because it's only a hotline one landline one number of people have to call it yeah it it seems like a very strange process and also an application for people who have to fill that mind you it's clear we have very high illiteracy rates so it's quite a strange thing that's happening and in general for artists I mean some people are like Talia teaching or employees of the ministry of culture so I think their salaries go on but most other artists are not in any way supported by the state so that sounds like a piece of an absurdist Marajek theater piece that they're a one-time payment of $20 there's only one landline in all over Egypt for people to apply and you have to fill out something before which I guess have to send it by mail it doesn't it's a it's of course devastating and shocking Talia what do you what is your evaluation what is going to happen to the artistic theme the theater scene women in theater also no I like as Laila was saying most most of the independent artists have no support at all we work other jobs maybe to make ends meet and sometimes we get commissions for projects but there are a few people who are hired by the state so they work for the government theaters and they have a a meager salary but it's a regular salary and then they get paid when they do a project like they get paid for rehearsals or 15 days of performance or whatever so all of that money is not happening even for those who are supported by the government for our official employees of the government for the rest of us who are not each to to their own and Mike I'm I'm not commissioned to do anything now I was hoping to push one of my plays and then film a basic like rehearsal and then start looking for funding for it and that's not happening at the moment and who knows when that would be a possibility so it's pretty hard and people are trying to think of possibilities how do we support each other like the Tyler max idea of creating something like a platform and presenting work on it is maybe a way that could work in New York or in the States but I'm not sure if people would fund or pay for art when basic needs like minimum basic food and medicine is not fulfilled so it's a much more dire situation than I can fathom of like a solution for yeah this is this is a for sure extremely hard especially also artists who in a way perhaps expressed as every artist does problems in a country that do exist we theater also is a way to work through problems it's a Greek theater where you show something and you learn something you show a problem or because it's in personal life or in the society and I also do know that of course in Egypt and in other countries once you are not a government artist when you express your own opinion is also even more complicated to get such as you said a meager salary a job and Sahar how is the situation in Lebanon for theater artists you are part of the theater scene in Lebanon and Beirut which is a lively scene and in the old days it was called the Perez of the Middle East and there's all the complications of course that out there yeah so what's what's going on there what how do people survive it's been really a hard year for theater artists here you know before the COVID-19 we had you know starting last October we had at the beginning of the you know what we're calling now the revolution the October 17 revolution you know all theaters I would say in Lebanon closed down in support you know of the revolution because our feeling that was that we needed to be on the street we don't want people to come to the theater we want people to be on the street because that's where change is happening that's where people need to be you know so you were on the also you you were on the streets I was on the street you know as much as I could because I have I you know my son is now 14 months old so he was around seven months when the revolution started but I took him I would go and it's safe you know my husband was every day on the street so we had the represent representative on the street as a family but I'm 100% pro the revolution and everything it called for and you know in theater what my feeling usually and the why I do theater because as you said it's it's a place where change can happen or at least like Auguste Bois used to say it's a rehearsal for a revolution so when a revolution is happening you need to be in the revolution so see it theaters closed down um for that reason and then bit by bit they reopened again uh we had as a u b we had to cancel our show because same reasons but other independent theaters I mean I'm lucky that I work I have a institutional support but many other artists in this country they work on their own and they started reopening their doors so that they could survive then COVID-19 happened you know arrived in Lebanon and we had to close down again so the situation is you know similar I would say to what I'm hearing my colleagues here say it's you know it's really hard time for for artists and because again my feeling I mean I find it hard to say that because I've never in my life I never imagined that I would say theater is not important at the moment and I'm saying this now in the sense that of course it's gonna help us tell the stories it's gonna help us understand what we're living right now but right now there are people who are in need of their basic needs they need you need they need to be fed they need to feel safe and secure once we can assure that people have this then we can talk about creating I mean I find I'm really lacking motivation in this period of time I'm trying to take it easy and one day at a time and you know is the feeling of the overwhelming feeling that I'm living that I'm experiencing like everyone else I mean at the same time I'm very grateful that I'm safe and I I can cook and I can you know I have a house and I you know the basic stuff again so yeah I don't know do you think this will change your work will you be a different artist when you come out when we all will come out of the COVID-19 tunnel I think so like everything else I mean right now for instance I'm I'm I'm in the village where I come from I haven't lived here for the last 24 years my first 16 years of life were here but then I moved out and now I'm in the mountains in the mountains it's called the what's the name it's the Shoof Mountain and your village name is my village name is what honey yeah so I'm staying with my father who lives alone and you know to take care of him but also to enjoy his company I haven't lived with him for so long and I'm you know I'm I'm still teaching online and I'm still caring for my son and my father and my family at the same time I'm rediscovering certain aspects about my own life that I haven't been in touch with for so long I've been recording sounds of the village that I think I miss now I'm realizing that I miss but I have never really thought about this and I think these will find their way to my work in the future I'm sure we we all at least here will need we will need theater to tell these stories how are we going to do this and how it's going to change the form and the style I think this is up to time to tell I can't answer that question now I think it's too much already to think about what stories we want to tell there's so much going on and at the moment I think it's important to experience and to be present as much as possible because even that is kind of hard because as you know as all these artists that you you met Frank it's it's it doesn't make any sense you know so I'm trying to be as present as possible I'm you know connecting to my to my roots as much as I can I'm trying to breathe as much as possible and you know just stay sane for the moment and reflection will happen later on we need the distance to be able to reflect and to make sense of things thank you Leila same question to you do you feel something is happening inside you is there something changing I think the world will definitely change and I I mean of course you can never know but my feeling is there are two opposite changes that are happening at the same time one is very much in tune with capitalist needs and the I mean the idea that to force people to continue work online to exactly the same way they would have done in other places I find very complex and I feel for everybody who obliged to go to work with that worry or to continue to work in the same way as if nothing is changing but to even work even more and obliged to produce even more and in the other in the other direction there will be people who will recognize this time as a time to question a lot of the status quo that has been before this period to think of time in a different manner to think of also I mean people who have been calling out for producing a food like what Delia was mentioning about growing their own food and all of these kind of suggestions to fight capitalism have been called a bit crazy or you know so so I think that might change more people will question their previous lifestyles before this period and the same definitely goes for me I think I'm working at a low capacity being very gentle on myself and on my team keeping ourselves sane with creating doing some creative work which we can do remotely but at the same time like Sahara was trying to really be in the moment enjoy all the labor I have to do and give time for emotional and intellectual digestion as well of what is happening and I'm very worried about the future because for me there has been a great degree about intimacy and I've been very much always trying out formats that put this in question and I have a feeling that this will be possible we're having a little static I'm here but yeah thank you that's a that's a that's a these are airplanes above my head airplanes military planes military yes there's only ones who can be in the sky now sorry yeah well no that's all part of the of the reality we we we do we do live in I go I know all of you all three of you you know wrestling with the situation of society in the country you do your theater work will you feel work will get more political I know everything you do whether it's openly political or is a political work but will you think it will be more political will people want to see place that deal with the situation or will it be more escapades that will people say we want to see a comedy we want to see something different from theater when it comes to it what what are your predictions what will happen in Egypt and Lebanon I will refer to something that happened during the years of the unfolding of the egyptian revolution where when the revolution became in vogue and many people who are working for the government theaters were doing revolutionary plays this is what they called them but the content was really the counter revolution it's just how it was labeled or how it was presented to to ride on that wave so from from that I'm not very optimistic that the work that will get support from the government or the major theaters or media coverage would be really political in the way I would understand or want to see political theater because that that work is unsettling and there is very very small margin for it that lila created work during like that margin when it was open and now that margin is not there at all I have not seen any work by lila in Egypt in many years because it becomes 2016 tell us a bit lila what was that work in 2016 what you did no I mean since 2016 I haven't been doing work because of I mean I've always been kind of going through calculated risk because I've been refusing to give work to the censorship since 2010 and 2011 to 2013 there was the void which delia was mentioning so there was somehow a censorship vacuum which created a margin of freedom as well but then since 2013 it has been um I mean some of people in my team had a bit of state security issues around 2012-2013 and then afterwards it was calculated risk kind of finding other means to create public events that are announced in certain ways where tickets no ticketing happens like certain conditions to kind of evade censorship legally or have a way to answer back in case it's attacked but since 2016 I've been more and more feeling that the arrests were haphazard and um attack on on independent artistic and cultural institutions along with very surreal cases against colleagues um theater music um and so on so it has been a decision to not create the work that I'd like to create in Egypt since 2016 because I do not want to feel a responsibility for any risk that might happen for people the people I work with um and of course it's very sad we've shown one or two works on one or two nights almost like in secrecy or like made it very complicated for people to enter who would not be known by another person let's put it this way um so kind of by invitation only um and it it it is quite sad I don't um I know I don't want to create work here unless I feel I have the courage again the same way I had it or um unless things change and I don't think it will happen soon or if it's a topic I'm 100% sure that nobody will be interested in or see see it from any angle that would disturb or bother anyone which I until now haven't thought of that topic to be honest uh in 2016 it was a the last work that was publicly viewed was a work about women collectively testifying against the rape by British soldiers which happened in a village in 1919 in Egypt and sort of looking at these documents which we found in the foreign office archive through the lengths through our lens as women today and um what are you afraid of or would be arrests or um you would be put out of work what would be the consequences is not really the question because none of my work is produced by Egyptian entities but I mean uh laws have been changing uh in relation to foreign funding and any kind of support so also a lot of the funding organizations have either moved offices or officially closed in Egypt and also I cannot be sure what funding would be seen how because you know the thing is with autocratic states that they always find the way to frame things the way they want um so I don't think it's only about that but what happened in 2012 2013 was that um we got really bothered by state security every time we entered Egyptian airports so being investigated searched etc and some people who were working in governmental institutions such as the university would get calls from the security office etc so things like that direct interaction or interventions by state security who have not been dangerous enough but yet uh threatening um and the thing is that arrests have been really haphazard in the past I would say three four years where people have done ridiculous online jokes and have been spending years imprisoned and tortured uh to say the least or actually people are imprisoned for no reason at all usually it's it's been more about people who've been in the wrong place at the wrong time could be a pass or buy or a political activist but recently it was also really directed at uh artists um which is I mean one can take responsibility for oneself but it kind of feels uh not good to take it for other people you know it's incredible um under what conditions you guys work and what great work you personally also do and it's a heroic industrial that theater is a place where um thinking happens where people think and where you do something by thinking and you think by doing and that people can then come and see it even whether it's in small spaces by word to word but I can only imagine what that now means then for you guys not even being able to move leave the apartment and what your role is and um um Sahar and uh how is it in Beirut will there be um a breath of fresh air will there be an opening after this you think or will the state seize this moment to have more power to crack down like we hear what's happening in Hungary Poland the many other states um African states will what is your prediction will there be a space for doing theater or not I think always the answer will be always there will be space we've been uh you know we've been battling with censorship for as long as I can remember here in this country and artists have always been able to find ways to work around censorship or provoke censorship um the last uh show I saw post revolution was a show by a company here in Lebanon that I admired and respect and it was um a documentary process kind of project uh about love which is interesting you know kind of answering your question and resonates with what Dalia also said and um I we had a talk back with the company I took my students who are studying a documentary theater class and have always been trying to work with the censor because I think they care to to show the work so they weren't trying to provoke or anything they do the work that they do but for this particular show they were my students were asking whether they submitted the text to the censorship and they said no and that was a decision post revolution to not submit the work to the censorship office they only performed four nights which was that that was their plan um I think the the authorities here are more afraid of what's happening online more than the theater itself um you know like also Laila said like many uh uh people were activists mainly were arrested for a Facebook status here you know put in jail for several days um people you know and um some people I know some people I'm Facebook friends with some people I know personally but yeah this has been an issue recently in Lebanon um in terms of my experience my latest experience with the censorship office was when I wanted to perform the the documentary project on sex trafficking that was in last September and I for the first time I submit the text of the play to the censorship office I used to do it like a kind of closed performance invitation um a free admission just to not having I didn't want to deal with the censorship office before September but now because the plan was to take the play on a national tour I I thought I'll just get it over with and um I used real names in the play of traffickers for instance and people who and they sent me a letter asking me to change and I refused simply I asked for a meeting and I met with them and I explained like you know it's the essence of documentary theater I wasn't planning in you know accepting to compromise the integrity of the show or the integrity of the documentary process and and it was kind of a negotiation and they were like okay fine we'll just overlook it so you know people I think artists will find way in terms of what will surface after uh post COVID-19 I I wish I know I mean I think because I'm personally now in my in in this period in my career I'm very much interested in personal testimonies I think this what we will need to hear you know we need to hear about how people experience this isolation this connectedness at the same time because I don't think the world has been more generous than it is now I mean look at all the theaters in the world the top notch things that we've always wanted to see now everything's open for free you know the live streaming you know I I feel there's a sense of generosity that's so beautiful at the same time there's a fear and sense of trauma and grief you know we're all experiencing this and I think personal testimonies will help us make sense of our humanity and you know take it see what's next you know what what's gonna happen next um but you know theater has always been in need for me and people in and I people in my at least in my bubble are people I work with we don't do it because you know we do it because it's the only thing we we can do and want to do it's a survival kind of mechanism I don't want to say an escape but rather more a need you know I I've always thought it's a right having access to theater should be a right like you know like education like food like which is not I mean it might be probably something for granted in other countries but in this country it's not we have zero support from the government yeah it's incredible I mean we we used to hear so many complaints from the New York scene and they are real complaints how hard it is to make art how difficult also in the big cities in Europe where I mean you're not happen to be one of the biggest theaters but hearing about your work under the circumstances of the dedication dedication to work into the very essence of theater it is so inspiring in the world needs to hear from you we also for the global theater community is important that you are the guys who kind of keep that up you have the generation who creates work and like many many generations before we are coming closer to an end so let us a little bit know what are you reading at the moment what are you listening to do you guys have a journal so tell us a little bit maybe Dalia we stop with you what do you read what do you listen to and do you keep a diary I do keep a diary and now it's electronic diary and it really helps because I can just kind of empty my brain from dreams and nightmares or whatever and I am reading a couple of books by Gina Martin and I'm their spiritual books but they're going back in time to the time when the goddess was more powerful and how things change in the last 5000 years and it's not a spoiler but I'm one of the characters of the book so it was very funny to read about me 5000 years ago kind of thing and Dalia did that was a nice distraction the last few days and the first book is already published and the second book is under publication so that was quite interesting it's called the Sisters of the Solstice Moon by Gina Martin so spiritual difference but really similar because it's kind of Armageddon or end of the world as we know it and then the major shifts and what happened so potential possibilities dire extreme opportunity so that was that was interesting yeah sure there is a feeling of an end of time or many artists you know have that feeling anticipated Laila what do you read and what you listen to is there something what you might tell our viewers or do you write a diary no I don't write a diary at all I've always been really resistant to keeping memories through photos or diaries so I'm really a live moment girl it's very difficult for me to look back on anything really I am currently not reading because I've been very busy with distilling the novel into the opera so when I'm in a part in a creative process it's very difficult for me to disengage so also at the moment I'm very much listening to contemporary classical music and opera only what opera is the latest one you listen to today I was I listened to Bernstein's something cuisine song and the one I keep watching which is one of my favorites is Katie Mitchell's Alcina and I'm generally a really a fan of Baroque music fantastic thank you and Sahar yeah I'm just today I read I'm reading mainly for my classes because this is one thing that I you know I have to do constantly so just today I read a play called hidden by Michael Rod and Laura Eason from an anthology on ethno drama and I've been I haven't been keeping a diary for some time but just recently and and because I moved to the village I found myself recording sounds as I mentioned and so I'm thinking of this as my current diary I think they will bring up lots of things later on yesterday I recorded the sound of the microphone here in this village it's a very tiny village in Mount Lebanon really probably like around 2000 people and max and when there's an announcement to make they broadcast it on some sort of a megaphone what do you call it like megaphone maybe so not not a van it's actually you don't need a van because it's so small so it's located they they have two megaphones located in different locations and they can broadcast the message to all the community so they were sending out the mess the new measure by the Ministry of Interior about the recent curfew so I'm keeping these I'm listening to baby songs children's songs with my with my kids baby Einstein recently so yeah that's what I'm doing that's what you're doing yeah yeah yeah that's amazing maybe you interview your father and find out some secrets of his life I've been wanting to do this for so long Frank and I've not been able to find the courage I feel like it's I'm asking my husband to do it honestly like just yesterday I asked him to do it for me because I feel it's like I don't want him to interpret this as me saying goodbye or something it's yeah but tell him someone from New York asked you to do it and that you you just had to had to do it as the end of the end of the trial at the end of the question might be a great monologue coming out but what would you sell to artists who are in a similar situation like you maybe in the Middle East and I've been other places of the world who live under in work under such difficult circumstances is there any kind of a twice the chance that we could give them what you all think that's they should keep in mind I I would tell them what I'm telling myself on daily basis take it easy you don't have to be productive right now because that has been you know that's how I function my father this is one thing I take from my father he started working when he was 12 and he's he worked until like six months ago like he's 85 now every day of his life he worked and this is something I took from him I'm a hard worker and for me it's like I can't function if I'm not producing you know at a very so and I and now being you know not not being able to be productive I I keep reminding myself that it's okay it's time to experience and to breathe and be present and be grateful and count your blessings and all of this so take it easy one day at a time and hopefully we'll make it out of this alive yeah that's good advice Laila yeah really no pressure to be productive we also don't have to watch everything that's being streamed thank you Laila yeah I'm finding quite overwhelming actually yeah yeah I'm finding I'm really questioning the generosity I'm really wondering if a lot of places in the world are not worried they will be forgotten or things are individuals are worried they will lose their moment and I think it's completely fine to be quiet and to attend to just being to just questioning I think really to seize the opportunity to question our lifestyles to question the status quo to question how we'd like to continue since we don't know what our context will look like and I think that's that's very important you were asking if works will be more political I think especially us as a medium that is collective that's really based on this collectivity with an audience there will be a lot of questions raised and we don't really know how we will continue to work or how soon we will be able to work and if we work will we continue in the same way no this is these are quite amazing and questions tomorrow I'll be coming to the end of our talk now tomorrow we hear voices again from Italy it will be Lucia Calamari a great great played out playwright one of the leading playwrights she wrote a little poem about this time now and questioning Italian theater it got her into trouble with the theater community Cristiano Cristiano will be with us and Cristiani will be with us Valeria Orrani from the playwrights project we will have them artists from Taiwan Meredith Monk will be with us this week I think on Thursday which is going to be also a great podcast so thank you really all three of you and you have our highest respect I cannot tell you how much it means for us to know that you are out there doing that work as a representative of all mankind and keeping on with this old tradition of theater that all the sudden is also again very very new it's encounters a new technology and the French philosopher always said of an old tradition encounters a completely new technology something happens that moves things forward we hope it's in the right direction there's something to discover maybe it would be a hybrid model and we are a bit closer connected the world has gotten smaller we are so close on the other hand our personal worlds have gotten so small we are in our apartments and so we all really have to try to make sense out of it and we don't have answers more and more questions but really thank you for sharing your experience and again our respect for all of three of you and all your colleagues out there who do this truly significant work and we need to hear more of you and your stories we try the singing to do that it's also a call to all theaters in the world in the West New York but also in America to focus and listen what comes from your place so thank you all for coming and please to the audience also thank you I know how busy everybody is how much we are doing and how much is offered online and that you stay with us and listen to to these artists is very significant to us but also for them it's a great way of showing support and I hope to hear you back so I'm going to say goodbye thanks to the great hull around us the I'm DJ and Emerson college who hosted here in Boston and and to May and Sanyang and great Jackie from the Segal team and everybody who supports us and of course from the Graduate Center CUNY and I hope you will join the Segal Center again thank you so much and I hope I see you all see you in New York soon bye bye