 Welcome, everybody back to Segal Talks here at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, the Graduate Center CUNY. My name is Frank Henschker and I'm the director of the Segal Center. We are in Manhattan, in New York City, the only institution as far as we know in the Americas and Europe, producing every day and new programs related to Corona, virus, theater, performance. And our idea, instead of showing life work at the Segal Center for three, four years, we actually had the only film festival of screen work by theater artists and but we decided and thought it is important now to listen, to radically listen, to have conversations and to not stream already recorded work and we have done so for 13 weeks now, still in March we began and we have talked to now almost a hundred artists and heard globally from around the world how the situation is, how the virus is affecting lives, the thinking, the working, also the future of theater and performance. We follow Brecht's idea who said new times meet new forms of theater and we are investigating how are they looking like. Do we know that it's all raw, they are moments of experiencing, so radically different for everyone and we are stunned to hear from Indonesia or Egypt, to hear from Taiwan or Korea, to hear from Germany or Belgium and then from the US or Brazil, devastating the kinds of Chile and so many, many, many more things. We hear from masters of theaters, we hear from emerging artists but they are all significant voices and we need to hear from them. They are on the right side of history, artists, they have been on the right side of the complex struggle for freedom and for liberties and social progress always went hand in hand with the arts and especially the performance arts where people do care, people think in social political context in systems and they have been a contributor to change. We are in a complex time, a time of change. We are the native American theater companies and we are perhaps new creationists, we do not know how the outcome is, something very dangerous is out there or like in the old fairy tales we have the mad king, there is a plague in the country and it is up to us to mobilize to go out to an adventure to save, to put our lives at risk perhaps, to believe in what we do. Tanya Brugera from Cuba said she is interested in Brecht's Galileo project because he had to make up his mind. Do I say what I believe? Do I say what I stand for my work? Or do I don't say anything and renounce my views? So I get my dinner and my chicken. So there are big, big questions we have here. Before we come to our great guest, and I welcome Liva Yatsi from Syria, who is a refugee, who is working in Berlin to continue her work in theater, poetry and film and television. Let's go for a moment back to the US here. We had a terrible day yesterday. 40,000 new infections were reported. And as we all know, this doesn't really cover all the numbers. It's the highest day ever since we started this series. And we are very, very concerned. Texas closed its bars again, unprecedented because they like everybody else in the countries that support our president so strongly. Try to ignore it, diminish it. And Arizona and Florida are experiencing numbers unheard of. And there are 2.5 million infections in the US. The next one is Brazil with 1.2 and then 600,000 Russia and young Americans, New York Times, wrote about it today, young Americans between 20 and 44 actually make up half of the cases. They might not be as sick as other people older or people with preconditions, but about 50% of all the cases are young people. And yes, also some of them get the virus and actually get it back. They get over it and then it comes back in a second wave. The indication that it might even induce diabetes. This hasn't been known before. So it's quite a complex time. We do live in here and Saudi Arabia has, as we said earlier, has ended the haji. Basically only 1,000 people will be allowed to come, normally 2.5 million travel to do the holy pilgrimage. Mosques are closed for first time in a thousand years. And we do not know where this all is going. Britain might close all its beaches. It was opened yesterday, millions went out, did not respect any guidelines, safety. They have such high numbers of cases and they might close everything down. Interestingly enough, Israel and the Arab Emirates who don't have any diplomatic ties agreed for the first time to collaborate, to do scientific research on the virus. So they are interesting things. Liverpool won yesterday. Finally, the league in England, they went out people also to celebrate and not really respecting the rules, not wearing masks, chanting, singing all that what we really want to do, but it is most probably very foolish to do though. It's the most dangerous time, perhaps more dangerous than in the very beginning. And we have to be truly on our lookout and we have to stay safe. Another disturbing thing, the police in Houston, Arizona was more or less hiding another murderer by the police, a 27 year old Latino man who's the name Carlos Ingram Lopez died in police custody on the lawn in the house of his grandmother. He did say on the video, I can't breathe, I can't breathe. He was in that choke hold and didn't survive. I think he had also mental health problems, but it was misdiagnosed and there was no reason to kill another man. Strangely enough, the outcry is not as big as it should be. And we are again shocked by this and the awareness that we have now hopefully bring real change, change. We need Trump, as we know, doesn't wear a mask in his big rally as Tulsa. His secret service actually, now dozens of them have to be in quarantine because they had and got the coronavirus. So many people in the building where he called them was to come without mask, got infected. It's a president full of disregard for human life. So many people were dying because of his politics and he suggested injecting us with disinfectant. He fled in a bunker when there was some unrest in front of the White House and he cleared with tear gas friendly and peaceful protest to hold up a Bible in front of a church for a photo op with the military. And he's asking the military to basically shoot on their own people, on American people. He is supposed to protect us. The military is here to protect us and not to use military tactics as the police did flying helicopters over demonstrators. It's unacceptable. It's unimaginable. America should be an exception. It's not, we hear worldwide of the injustices but we are watching in horror what is happening in here and we all hope it will change. Police is refusing in many places to wear a mask also and nobody understands how this is possible and there should be a clear order that's not. So it's a moment of disarray, there's distrust, deep distrusting government, deep distrust in workplaces, a lockdown people can go out and temperatures are rising. So it's a perfect storm and we hope it will not be a violent summer, the summer of 2020 theater has been on the side of peaceful protest, of radical protest but peaceful to look at the world, to look at stories from each side, try to understand the complexity of what theater is about everybody who says it's like this and not like that. It's black or white is lying to us. That's what Trump and others do. Theater shows how much actually is in direct opposition to each other. They are complex answer, they are contradictions and we have to be able to live in contradictions but find solutions, find forms that work and theater always has been the form of finding new forms, rejecting old ones and re-invigorating society with that's showing what is possible. So I'm very concerned today and I apologize for going on a little bit longer but also the fact that Americans most probably will not be allowed to fly to Europe. Europe is gonna open July 1st, Americans as it looks like, none no American will be able without a special permission to fly and visit Europe and so US is joining countries like Brazil or like Russia and it's a disastrous politics of Trump that provoked that he famously closed overnight without consulting anyone, they you bought us for America when there were a thousand cases in America but there was no testing, there was no awareness at the time. So it's a shocking what we go through but life itself is so complex, so hard and now with us we have a lever and again I apologize for my long introduction but she's from Syria, a country where a corona virus might look if you're from there, like a little holiday. We had Natasha Natalia, we're from Ukraine who said for us, the corona virus is like Christmas. We have, you know, there's no war, the border was Russia and we are at home, it's peaceful and she's afraid of what might happen. She's very apocalyptic thinking. So Liva, tell us how is it for you, you're in Berlin and what time is it, where are you and what's on your mind? It's six something afternoon, it's a hot Berliner day, it's really strange to have such hot days in summer, especially in summer. And yeah, I'm here since 2016, I arrived here to work on a project and then it seemed that I in a way had no other option to leave, go back to the Middle East due to the nature of my work first of all and then the nature of the dictatorship that rules the country. So I decided to stay here to work more on the project and on other projects. And how's the situation with corona? It's like other countries, Germany is also rising higher in the percentage of, I mean, I don't know if I should call it second place, but the institution here, they started calling it a second place. So in a way it could be a very short summer in terms of like really going out and yeah, but to go to the next layer of your question about what is on my mind and how do I spend the time doing corona? Just like so many of other maybe guests, it was a time for me to watch and observe. I wanted to be part of this kind of universal, it's not a break actually, it's like kind of I accepted, I took in the situation, I didn't want to fight against it or to immediately produce about it. It was also really impossible for me. So I took it as a time to re-inform myself and to recharge. That's on different layers, whether politically to read more about maybe historically how other plagues really, I mean happened in history how to look at this period as part of a historical kind of tide and to know more about the policies that could really contribute, could have contributed to this thing that we are in because I was surrounded by some kind of really obnoxious ideas concerning how China bats and all these things. So for me, it was really very superficial to really get in and accept all this feedback and to know more about the distribution of wealth in the world and to understand more and to recharge more in that terms, not only as an artist, but as a human being because we're all part of this. And once again, and this is really coming from a Syrian background, once again, I'm pretty sure now there's another layer to tell us all that no one is safe alone. So this thing that we lived through in Syria and like, yeah, there is a spot somewhere, there's always a spot somewhere in the world where a war is taking place, where like weapons are sold, where refugees come from, where disasters happen. But we are safe here because of our doors, we're safe in, I don't know, Europe, in Australia, in New Zealand, in Ethiopia, I don't know, but I mean, there's always that kind of distance that something is happening there and would always happen there. And as long as we're safe, as long as we're in our comfort zone, it's all right. But lately, the last maybe 10, 15 years, I would say that this slogan is being defied and shaken. And the more time passes, the more I guess we're sure that if there is a war somewhere in the world, if there is a crisis somewhere in the world, we are all concerned. And that's how really coronavirus really functioned in a way. So it's not there in China, it's not there in Syria, it's everywhere. And you're not immune if you're rich. And you're not immune if you're in a first world country, though it really helps, but you're not immune. So I mean, all these ideas about to be really aware about how, what are the factors, how things interact about class issues in times of crisis. I mean, there is this idea that corona unified every person, like artists, I don't know, people wherever, they are rich and poor, actually not. I mean, to be confined in like two meters apartment is not like to be confined in your palace and like to be confined with access to healthcare is not like to be confined in a country like Syria or Sudan or Yemen at the moment. So all of these things really in a way, shaped the time, the first time of shock about corona. But at the same time, there is a kind of recharge and trying to understand the place where I'm standing in, what kind of content. I mean, looking about content about ideas like Darwinism because I was like thinking if dealing with corona is a kind of another survival of the fittest. I mean, is this another layer of how certain ideas, certain concept extinct and other one come to life again. And to deal with such a dilemma, whether on a structural level, on a personal level, is this another kind of Darwinism? And to see, because that means there is a kind of a new thing happening, something new coming out of it. So I was very curious to maybe we're not the, I mean, I'm not the one who'd be surviving. It's not about like I survived, but the idea of what is the shape that would come out of it as a result of the survival of the fittest in such kind of struggle. And so I was fascinated to see how each country or each community or each group, let's say dealt with this and to, there was like ideas that Malaysia is doing well, Sweden is doing well, I don't know who's doing well. A sarcastically, maybe some poor countries were better in acting or reacting to such a thing. So it was for me very interesting and very good to look at that and to understand. I mean, to communicate in a way with other people how they are dealing with it. And just to take a distance from my own struggle with like work and Syria and all of this to have it all together in one part with this international movement. So yeah, I mean, that was very intense for me. It was not a kind of a break in that way. That's why I told you it's not a break. Actually, it was more of an intense time. I would not say it's a forced intense time because in a way I could have just went working on my project, but I really took this decision to be part of it, to watch it, observe it, live it and to have some moments when I'm thinking about it or just sitting there knowing nothing but to do and worrying about people around me. So it's really on that level. And trying to examine ideas like all these also conspiracy narratives that we were surrounded with. It was for me very, someone who's working with narratives and stories and it was for me very important to see how people also react in these narratives who would say that this is a kind of manipulation. There's nothing over there. There's no virus, it's just like a flu and they are using it to control. All these narratives were very interesting for me to see how people use different mechanisms to defend this moment, this absurd moment. So yeah, that was a full job of nothing. Doing nothing like a full job. And what about you? Well, as you know for the series, we are trying to make sense out of by listening. Where are you when it happened? Do you remember when it started? Yeah, I was in Syria, I was shooting, working on my next documentary. I was shooting there. And then I started hearing the news about corona and then I started to think now, maybe it's just like something like a phase or it happened quickly and it goes. And then when it started to really materialize on the international scene, I was directed to the choice that I should go back to Berlin because I cannot stay for a long time in Syria because of security reasons. So I should really find a way and interrupt and stop everything and go back to Berlin. And just the way back to Berlin is really an absurd moment. Now when I say I have to go back to Berlin because I'm Syrian and I should stay in Syria. That's where, I mean, the word back home means for me. So, but I mean, politically and historically at the moment it's not home, I should really leave. So I went back to Berlin and I had to stop working on a documentary which is dealing with the idea of homecoming. So it was also a question for me about home. It was a moment wherein like I was in a way facing again the theme that I'm really interested in working in lately about the idea of home and identity and how they manifest and grow and develop or like reiterate in times of crisis. So yeah, I stopped and I went back to Berlin and I had the time to think about all the projects, all the content that I was working on in terms of relevance because it was a kind of a U-turn. I mean, there is a moment of interruption and everything you're working on seemed for a moment irrelevant to the moment that you're living in. So all the narratives or the stories or the projects, let's say, yeah, it reminded me of Syria. Sometimes the electricity just went off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so I had to deal with questions about content and what is relevant in this moment? I mean, are these ideas and topics that we were talking about before relevant and would they say relevant? Is it a moment where it's a kind of an interruption and the system will be able to recover again? All of the system will change. I was a bit pessimistic because I knew that the system is stronger and it will find ways to leak again from the new demands. It will leak again to reform like a jelly thing again. But sooner or later, the deconstruction of it started to show in a way. So yeah, there are huge questions about content started to raise in front of my eyes about Syria, about war, about new forms of war and new forms of, I mean, the idea of new form actually and like what will come out? I do believe that where we're going, we were going there anyway before Corona. But the thing that really maybe surprised us is that it is faster now. So we were in a way sensing that we're moving somewhere but Corona came and just took the break out and like we were going there like faster than we expected and faster than we're prepared to. So yeah, new forms would, and actually it started here in a way, even though they were like ideas and they were thinking like think tanks and an appetite for something new. And we're just now faced with the fact that we we don't have so many years to think about it. It's just like there, it's over there. And the online issue is like there. It's created now questions about the meaning of outside and what is safe and what is how to access art and what is the intention about art? And I mean, these are, and what is the reception theory now? And so all these things are now on the table quicker than we were thinking that they would happen. So who's your audience and who you're talking to and what is your tools? They are very, very much in the question marks and do you really own the tools of the coming period? We might think that we do, but maybe we should like take a moment and think that we don't or we should learn the tools of the coming period or like to maybe not accept it, accept it. I don't know. As Chekhov says, it's time for new forms as well. And the single. So I remember that monologue when I'm talking about new forms coming and it was not said in the play in a peaceful way. I mean, it was kind of a strong moment. I mean, so it is. Although, as I told you, I feel the system is stronger and it will try to bring everything in a way to the pace where it controls them, the tools again, blah, blah, blah, but I think there is now, there's the Pandora box and there's something out. Tell us more about going to Syria to make the film. What did you see in Syria? How are people doing? I can only imagine how it is in a civil war and then the fear of Syria, I'm sure you're in contact with family and artists. What's going on there? What's going on there? I mean, the surface, the regime is taking control of the thing again, but there is at the moment an avalanche, an economic avalanche. It is a very, very big economic problem and that is the universal recipe, actually, afterwards is that there is this economic falldown and meltdown and everything is the dollar. I mean, the currency compared to dollar is falling down drastically and people are, I don't really know, I don't understand how people really survive. I mean, people started to get salaries like less than $2 of, I mean, it's really absurd what's going on there. And it is always astonishing how something really emerge and it makes things work. How people really there manage to eat, to work, to, I mean, to carry on in a daily life. It's really surprising because, I mean, the economic situation is so bad. Corona came like, we say like, like gold on a plate for dictatorship because then you can have a lockdown, you can start demanding things from people that in your dream, you couldn't have dreamt of better conditions. I mean, you can now sue people for not having masks. You can just like lock down all the community centers, theaters, cinemas, I mean, what else such a dictatorship would like to have? I mean, to ask people to stay home starting from, I don't know what time, it's six now. Now they opened actually, but I mean, before it was six PM and in weekends, you're not allowed to go starting from noon time. And there's no electricity enough. There's no access to good internet. So I mean, what else such a dictatorship would like to, I mean, but at the same time, it is important for the safety of people because they're the infrastructure is destroyed during the war. So it should be in a way very tactful in relation to Corona, but still this is really very suspicious. And it is, as it said, they really benefit from making people afraid. And who knows about the numbers over there? I don't, they really, every day, they give us an update of how many new cases and how many deaths and how many, I mean, healed people, but it's really ridiculous because who believes, I mean, those numbers. I mean, in Syria now, maybe the total number is 160 something, like the whole total number, which is could be, but still very strange, very, very strange. 160 is like one nursing home in the Jersey, you know? So it's like a big lie and not counting realities. It's, I mean, the same thing happened. It's ridiculous when you listen to the media, it's really funny because they say that we're doing that for the safety of the people, all these things, you know? So it's, we care about the lives of people, but we know that half a million people died and like half a million still in prisons, half a million disappeared. I'm talking about safety and like wearing masks and all these advertisements in the TV to ask people to wear masks. It was really ridiculous when people really lost their noses, for example. So it's all these advertisements worldwide for like stay home. I mean, for a Syrian, it's, I would have said, I wish to stay home, I cannot stay home. Why have to stay somewhere else? For lots of Syrians, the word home is, I mean, complicated. And this campaign of stay at home is just another reminder of injustice. So it's just, I wish I could, I can stay home because I cannot stay home. And yeah, so it's, in terms of artistic life at the moment, it's close to nothing because of the confinement. Before it was divided into two layers. The institutional level that has to do with the relation with the regime, getting funds from the regime, working in an international theater organization or international cinema organization. This was more of a spokesman of the government, of different, I mean, of certain narratives. And there were the independent people who were trying hardly to survive in such circumstances in war and in scarcity of funds. And every fund you get from outside is doomed to be for a Western agenda. And you have to be jailed for that. It's not easy to get money from outside with the financial economic boycott. You cannot really get money inside Syria. So the scene for the independent artists, it's very, very complicated and difficult to get money inside. They have to, in a way, smuggle money in to produce really poor together, but still some of them try to find ways. And it's always good in war because the bribery flourish and there's always some way that you can really get resources, but still it's really very complicated how you're gonna say a narrative that is different and not praising the regime in a way, but still do it inside Syria. And this is really heroic because then you are in the face of a big killing machine. So it is not easy. And some people are trying, whether by making like theater labs or seminars or workshops or some productions, they are really, you can count them on your hand. How to twist some famous texts into, I mean, to say something that you wanna say, but you put it on the mouse of Strenberg or whatever. So it's not easy for artists. And of course, they are not protected in a way when everything stops and they really work by the day or by project. There's no way they can get money. There's no way in the world where they can get money. And it's very hard. Even taxi drivers, I'm not really saying that only artists are fighting in this battle. A lot of people who are not getting salary which also increases in countries like Syria when the idea of institution is questionable and destroyed in a way. So yeah, and it's very hard now for artists. I know friends that they really, really, really, I mean, suffer financially, that you had to go back to their families to live in big numbers in one house. The social contract in Syria is also destroyed in the war. So that is another problem. But still there is a way of collaboration. I mean, between people, it's more of a Mediterranean attitude towards each other. So there is still concern for your neighbor if he's eating well or not. And it's just like, there is still this, maybe the word Mediterranean is to general, but that's how we use it in Arabic. But there is a way where people really help each other, but it's not enough, it's not enough at all. It's not like in Germany, because for example, in Germany, they decided to help artists in the first wave. I don't know what happened in the second wave. Yeah. So that's about, I mean, the situation in Syria and it's not better in Lebanon. I mean, there was a kind of interaction between Syria and Lebanon in the artistic scene. And so it's not better in Lebanon at the moment. So the whole thing is really missing talent. Yes, yes, yes. It's disastrous, it's disastrous here. And how disastrous must it be by a country torn by civil war and Syrian refugee camps where people say, yes, you say we should wash our hands, we don't have soap. No, no. And you should, all these things about masks and disinfections and all these, they really look like different, I mean, just like living in Mars. I mean, it's, it's, it cannot be applied. I mean, no way it can be applied. And I don't know how they're surviving in terms of medical issues. I mean, I did a project about birth, about giving birth, play about that. And I mean, there was no corona, there was nothing in that, I mean, in that scale. And the information you can get from midwives from healthcare personnel over there is disastrous. So what about corona? It's really above imagination. I mean, with the kids, with mingling, with living with the conditions of living, I guess corona really is very, just kind of a nocular, like you see bigger, the problems that you thought they are over there. I mean, if someone got infected somewhere and he visits you, so you're infected, so it's not about like they can really get sick over there and I'm safe. Really, more and more, I'm really certain about this idea how to be involved in it, like altogether as artists in each other problems. It's not about Syrian problem, American problem. Now we're lots of American artists are migrating to Berlin as well. So in a way, it's important to see how we own in this. It's not about only Syrian. Yeah, now it's incredible. And I wonder how you as a person hold it all together. I know you were a poet. You had a reading at the poet's house in Manhattan in New York. You had your play at the Royal Court in London, the play Goat, which dealt with the idea that if your son dies fighting for the government in the war, you get a goat. What does that mean? And how implicit is everybody? I mean, we also did the reading. It is a great play. It's also about in Germany, many places. You also a successful writer of soap operas. As far as I know, you wrote over 100 or 150 episodes. Many people said the Syrian ones were the very best to make money and the documentary filmmaker, going back to find out what home means. And then you have to go back to home, which is not your home, and your home is in complete destruction. So Corona forced you to think about the idea of home or artistic home. What did you find? What makes sense at the moment? What thoughts do you have? It's, I was mostly thinking about injustice in general. And that is actually, again, this is the cycle where that's why I feel that I'm involved in arts because that's the way that my only way to talk about injustice and to deal with the questions of injustice. So home is, I mean, home slash let's say the word choice. For me, I am with all these campaigns before about deporting people or not allowing people in. And at the same time, selling weapons to that area where you don't want to get refugees from. I mean, it's really like a dump over there, like a garbage bin, like a universal garbage bin where you can throw your jihadis, you can throw your fanatic people, you can throw your weapons expired food, expired medicine. But I mean, that's, I mean, now Syria is there for something. I mean, we know that they open borders for like fanatic people to go from France, from Germany, from UK, from Turkey, from all over, from Tunisia. But you're not allowed as a person to find refuge in these countries. So, and then when I was like thinking about this, the dichotomy because then if a French person dies in or like in Daesh in the north of Syria and he has family and then, okay, or if he doesn't die and then deporting him back home, they don't want them. I mean, the French government is now or like the German, the British, they are having all of these discussions about we don't want those people to come back. We want to sue them on other land there. So the idea of home for me is like really very complicated in this research because this is what I'm trying to do in this documentary about the idea of home is maybe this, this person is from, let's say, Algerian religions as they try to propagate that it's always with Arabic Islamic origin. So they go there to create the Islamic, I don't know what the caliphate over there and to create home. And then they failed, the French don't want to take them back. They don't want to take Syrians who are like sent out from that area in the north of Syria. They had to flee. So, I mean, what is home? What is home? I mean, for Syrian it's very complicated because now it's full of foreign people that they are not allowed to travel and they are also not welcomed anywhere in the universe but still people are selling weapons to your country and they advocate fighting. And if you go and ask Syrians outside, I mean, after 10 years of refuge life and in miserable conditions, if you ask them, do you want to go back home now? It's maybe possible. And the answers you get really strange. You know, you get answers of yes and no for really very strange reasons. And the painful thing for me is that when you ask people inside Syria, do you want those who travel to come back? There is a moment of silence that says no. So, in a way, the nation really divided between those who are inside and those who are outside. And this is not about only Syria. I also talked to our dear friend, about this idea, about the idea if he was welcome to go back to Poland at a certain moment. It was really important for me to understand this mechanism when people really leave, if they are wanted back. There is the feeling that for those Syrians who are outside, there's this feeling that they are waited, like there is a moment when they maybe go back. But the fact is that no. People who are inside, they manage life in a different, in a way that, I mean, even resources wouldn't suffice if people come back. And the country live from the, I mean, the families now live from the transfers. So it's a kind of an economic cycle now that, of course, the regime is benefiting from, but there's no end to it. So home for those people who left is no longer home. And home for those who were taken in like ISIS or fighters or whatever is also very problematic. And I don't know how some politician really talk about identity and home as something very solid and Christian or Muslim or, yeah. So this idea of home that really was important for me, I heard a lot of from people that after Corona, I mean, German people or let's say international people are living in Berlin because that's the place I'm, I know now at the moment, I don't know other cities, but they look proudly at the way the German authorities dealt with Corona and in a way they really felt rooted. They felt to be in the right place with all their complications and like ideas or remarks, but in a way they felt rooted and they felt that other places failed their people. So in a way, the idea of safety now will redefine the meaning of home in a way for so many people is to define danger and safe. And that means to define maybe the word home. For Syrian, it was a problematic issue because home meant danger. If I go home, I'm in danger, definitely. Whether physically by bombs and death or death, I mean, with all the layers of detention war death, but at the same time home should really have a different meaning for me. So it looks like living with an abusing family, living with an abusing father or mother is, it's a kind of a problematic relation where you always go back to question and to understand more. And so yeah, with Corona, I guess it will define the relation of people, people's relation to ideas of home. And yeah, there is something that also I wanted to tell you about is with all these ideas about refugees and here I came here with a visa, so I'm not arriving here as a refugee, but I was so obsessed and I mean, working all my work is in a way, political. I would just put it into brackets because poetry is not, but I mean theater and documentaries are political. So it was very astonishing for me that the new bearings of refuge, bearings of whatever, they don't really prefer Afghan people to come to Germany at the moment, like Syrian are okay, Afghan they should really be deported quickly because Afghanistan is no longer on the top of the list of danger countries or like countries at war. And at the same time, German citizens are not recommended to travel because it's not safe for them. So for me, safety and danger is like a very national. So it's a luxury. I mean, you're born with it. It's really for me, I mean, now with this Corona thing, I guess if we don't really question again all these issues before we vote, it's really, I mean, we're going in a slide with like one way to get down if we don't really understand that there is a relation between our actions as artists, as human beings, not just what we say, but also what we do. And I was thinking maybe the American election should be open globally. I mean, because it affects everybody. I mean, maybe there should be an online election, like to have some votes for international people too. Because it affects us. I mean, it's really, it's not such a, it's not American business. It's, it changes a lot in everybody's life. So maybe there should be an idea that they give us like international people. They give us some slots in the elections in the camp. And I was sure that he would be elected back into 2015. I was pretty sure I was in New York and I was attending all the rallies that he was doing, Trump. And I thought at that moment, if this person makes it for the first round, he would be the one. And I remember maybe at that time, I also communicated with you and I, in a way, maybe, I don't know if you remember, I told you, I feel that he will be there for so many reasons because people wanted something different from the, maybe the system. But at the same time, if he was able to convince 1,000 people, he would be able to convince the others because then there is an appetite for that. And coming from an area where you smell the authoritarian or you smell these things, you know that, I mean, you see it. I mean, it's, I was seeing it coming and I hope this time not. This time not. Now it's true. I think America doesn't have an experience of an authoritarian leader. That's perhaps also why the Democratic Party doesn't really know how to act and not. And everybody tries to be civil and write articles and have rational arguments, but it is not what's working. It's, I'm so sorry, you know, I see all the complications you do experience. I even remember when you said, when your father died, how complicated in your own country even it was, you know, to get a funeral done and how can you call a place then home if it's not safe. In Germany, yes, has done extraordinary well. And also took in, I think over a million refugees or a million point five from Syria, America took 2,000 or 4,000 in a year. They took maybe one. Yeah, something like that. And even so they had a big responsibility about politics in the region and a complete neglect of what a global leader should be, should be doing. For your work as an artist, is it a confirmation about the way you worked, you've thought or do you think coming out of this, you know, as we say, you know, nothing lasts forever, not the good things, not the bad things, this will be over one day when they hopefully find that vaccine and hopefully it's soon. But what will it be different? Will your work be different? It should be. At the moment, I don't know how in a way, but it should be, I mean, it's, otherwise I would be moving in a bubble. I mean, it just, it should be different. It's, I hope that it would be different for the better, of course, but it should be when I will go back to war because I'm always trying to talk about, to think about the values. I mean, it's, what is more shocking for me, the war or this? I mean, it's- What is more shocking? What is it? What, the Syrian civil war or Corona? What do you think? The Syrian civil war, I guess. I don't have answer- Is it close? It is, it is, it's more shocking. It's the Syrian civil war. Actually, I would start saying it was a revolution and then it turned to be a war, but it is more shocking because it also, it also, in a way, redefine the relation of some people that are very close to me who were, for example, regime or had such ideas. It was also shocking on the personal level, not only the horror of the war, it's also the, I mean, the inside hole of having somebody close who can kill and or somebody close who don't mind that other people die or to see the destroyed, to be surrounded by destruction, to, I mean, to see how you normalize with it. I'm fascinated by how we quickly normalize, how we immediately find a way to, I mean, to reconstruct things as if nothing is happening. And this is an area where I'm really very interested in working and that's how I, that's the main thing about those that the play is that how we, no matter how surreal things are, I mean, we just really arrange things that we accepted and as if it's been there forever. And I know it's a survival mechanism, but it's still very, very interesting for me how we cope and how we accept and how we normalize. And so, yeah, for me, in the Syrian experience was more shocking and it took me time to talk about it, to produce about it. And then I noticed what kind of effect it had on me. And I guess now with the corona, it's, it will also take some time for me to understand what kind of questions and layers it added to my work. I can now from an outside point of view, look at how other plays or performances are now being conditioned and limited by the idea of social distance. And you can hear from your friends that the rehearsals were so intimate and like they were like touching and talking and whatever, but then the performance was respecting the social distance. And like, so even in the mentality of directing, of writing and of, there is some things going to be, I mean, from the form, there is already this step of thinking about intimacy in a different way. And this layer would be added. I mean, there would be people who are still afraid to shake hands, even if corona, who knows what's coming next. So there is this question that is now posed and everyone is reacting to it. And you have to respect those who are still afraid, who don't want to, I mean, you look at the vernier ensemble, you see how they distributed the chairs. So again, theater is no longer an intimate moment. They have 20%, they opened again by 20% occupancy like one row is empty and then five seats are empty, the next person, because it stayed subsidized, they can afford it of course. How is it going? Do people go, have you seen a play yet? Did you go to see a play? Not yet, not yet. Are you interested? Of course. I mean, also then again, Frank, the question of online, everybody is thinking that we should also think of how to transmit this into as an online material. Is it fit to be an online material? So again, there is something about thinking about theater is definitely reconstructing, reshaping in a way. And as I told you at the beginning, I'm sure we were going there before the corona, but corona, it just, they took this little pebbles and things are faster. The velocity of it, your idea of it is just incredible. Do you see something in Syria or Lebanon online? Yeah. Things where you say, this is an interesting idea. That's a form that could work. Can you, is there something? I'm still thinking. I mean, working with images for like in the documentary, I'm always, my relation to online is, I mean, is vivid, is not legit my relation to this. And there was a moment when I felt, oh my God, now the universe, I mean, now the cultural thing around me is working on my own pace. Great, nothing is happening outside. I have all the time to watch what I've missed. So that's good. Now everything is working on my slow pace. I don't have to run. Everything is slowing down. I can really enjoy like a reversal, slow motion movement. And all these ideas, which luckily I'm not having so much like the fumo, the fear of missing out because this was now classified as a real phobia like in psychiatry. Again, with the influx of things available online and you cannot really get grasp of all of them. Again, recreated this need, oh, what should I? Again, you have this. I mean, that's how I say the system reshapes itself. Again, there are so many things that you'd like to see but that you're missing out because they are there for like one day, one night, whatever, for example, the theater festival in Berlin, the important place they were there really for a very, very, very short time and like with limited spaces, which is, I mean, also a good idea, a good convention maybe for the theater. But again, I've heard it a lot from friends around me that there are hectic trying to catch up with this online, I mean, kind of invasion. So everything, at the moment, everything is there for you. I wouldn't say it's designed to be online, but now the idea of designing things to be available online is present, it's very present. And from film festivals, it's very clear that I attended so many seminars where there's even like big festivals, they cannot really withdraw now this possibility from the festival. So even if physical festivals are inevitable, they will happen in a way, but still this one step forward would never go back completely back. I mean, things should be in a way, should be in a way, will be online. People will, since they tasted the idea of it's possible, so it will not go back. And this applies, of course, to theater and this definitely will have things to affect the way we write and the way people produce and how theaters depend financially on tickets or on subscriptions on such things. But yeah, it is happening, the online thing is happening. And it's enjoyable. It's, of course, it diminishes a lot of the meaning of the genre, of a genre like theater. It is more accessible for people in other countries who don't have the chance to see Amilorau, let's say, but it is coming, it is there. And we have to accept it and to see what tools do we have to deal with it? Do we, I mean, fighting against it is absurd, I guess. Is that something you saw, like a production, this was great? Yes, I saw one, but I cannot talk about it because it was a secret thing. Yeah. Maybe talk in secret terms about mysterious terms. Yeah, I saw some productions from the region, from Syria, from Lebanon, and I liked them and I was fascinated that these things are happening with the little resources people have there and to understand how people struggle to make sense and make meaning and to talk about values in a demand for triviality. I mean, there is like a global and of course, local intentional support for triviality and for ridiculousness and to find someone who's trying to make a value and to question this value is very in war, destroyed places and in economic problems, it's still very touching. So I guess underground performances, secret places, you are invited by a password shortly before so it can't be censored and so it's a form of an underground subversive art as it has been for centuries with authoritarian regimes or in war times where you put your life at risk when you utter sentences or create images that are not conformed, they're labeled as degenerated or whatever, but also now you put your life at risk with COVID as an actor, as your company, but also perhaps as a performer you might come as a spectator you come, you put your life and you could get the virus or as a performer you could get it from the audience as an artodian situation of a plague and signaling through flames and as someone said, it is artodian times but we have to stay on the right side of madness and not follow the madness that is destructive as from the dark side, theater is on the side of life coming slowly to the end, what do you read? What inspires you? How do you keep your motor running? How do you sharpen your knives? I watch a lot of what is available online, actually when it's possible, films, no, not TV, films and theater and I take the time to think, think a lot, actually, think and also imagine things without, yeah, with some like staying out in a way it's not very recommended but I mean thinking of the relation of the outside how maybe we abuse the relation in a way with things I mean with the materials around us and like there is a moment to understand the value of everything, of like being out and traveling and all these things, so it's for me was a very good moment to think and think again, think again and watch and read and think about black comedy, think about Gortesque again think about the absurd because I guess it's there are a lot of elements of the absurd in this moment of the tragic but still also I guess maybe I was thinking is it the right way to talk about it in, I mean is like the Gortesque you know I was like thinking about also this crisis this political crisis between me, everyone is talking about the political crisis of the left and there's also the political crisis of the right and so I mean this is really problematic because there should be now then the north maybe I don't know but there should be something new out of this and for me everything that is too absurd and too tragic and problematic I try to look for what is really the absurd and what is the surreal and then what is maybe the black comedy about it's not a comedy it's just like what is the Gortesque about it because I feel this is the way to understand it more and to face it as a human being not only as a tragedy but also when you see it historically you see your place historically in this I mean it's very tiny and it will repeat itself it happened before and it will happen again and repetition is again that thing that breeds not laughter but breeds your distance and it breeds your interaction with it and I was thinking where this would be in relation to corona all these times that we're living I don't have it as a question I don't know actually the answers but yeah and I'm watching a lot I'm attending the seagull talks and yeah no place much for TV although I'm working on like a mini series for the Arab world but yeah it's more about if you answer your own questions I guess you manage maybe more to be more talking to the others so the more you talk to yourself the more you have questions the more you have doubts and you doubt your own tools you doubt about the narratives it's a what about narratives after all everything I mean this is really not very well known we're just fighting over narratives so the more you question the narratives you are in I mean the more that maybe you could be useful and talking to others yeah I think you're right we're still flying by night we don't know where it's going we have to talk to others listen I like your question there's a big question is theater will it be the kind of the theater of the real the idea of a carol marten's idea of the documentary why as you do documentary will it be in this theater of the court test the absurd because life is now stranger than fiction life doesn't make sense it's absurd a court test what's happening so pretending that anything has a logical sense on stage doesn't make any sense because it doesn't reflect the work of this was how it is in Eastern Europe the comedies of Marajak or UNESCO or so many others because they said this is real it's much more a reflection of reality than anything that would be quote-unquote real or could be a story on a film is maybe as a closing question what what advice do you have for young artists also for our listeners but like the young Yeliva you know who started out in theater and writing and film you know what do you say to artists and what do you say to our listeners how should we use this time best and what should artists do maybe they should tell me maybe they have better answers than the ones I have of course I'm not in the position to tell anybody this is of course but I just talked to my about myself it's I mean get informed it's not about production it's not about how much we produce it's about what we produce what stays it's not important that we produce a superficial quickly good I mean film or theater that dies immediately when the thing I mean when the phase goes away but it's important to think and deeper and deeper and deeper it's art gives us the chance to mean to create even the speech of the of the other if you're a writer or whatever so you can you can create the narrative of the other and that is a moment to understand maybe and to get informed more not to have judgments quickly and to yeah it's it's a moment to life is so complicated to have of course to so the more you know about it the more you get informed the more you'll take a distance and not worry about what you're producing at the moment is very important I would say this is maybe something that I also should advise myself not only others is to think in terms of community not only in terms of like an individual if you cannot go to theater maybe I mean in your own little community it's there is I mean a moment where you can think of on a smaller scale and artists they they can now with the social media they can have more channels to talk to each other maybe this is this would be helpful in sharing their ideas and I'm not doing this but I always thought that this is a good idea and when when there is a blanket of problems covering everyone I mean why not to talk to each other as well but yeah get informed you just like to know more and not worry about producing at this moment I mean they will come and the more you take in the better you would give later on so yeah well that's that's that is very good advice you know stay informed you know think about community and and and find a way to participate so that is of real significance so leave I really really thank you and thank you Frank and one can only imagine you know what does it really mean to be here you you know and then go move on to something about what does it really mean and not in your country you're had to leave trying to make it with theater and writing in another country where you have to speak other languages there and and the loss you know that cannot be replaced and what's lost already it's also lost you will not it doesn't even exist anymore when you wanted to go back and and what will the future bring all these uncertainties and we have to all reimagine ourselves it's really hard work and you've been thrown into it by life you didn't ask for it and you have to deal with it but your duty in it is the most beautiful way in creating art and participating in community sharing and and perhaps through your experience and work and also create meaning for others to see what you do when they recognize something it resonates and perhaps makes them feel a bit more at home for that moment and gives an understanding and we get more more accustomed to that new world we live in and this is also what art does that artists anticipate a future and perhaps help us to stay in the moment and to say it's okay it will be different there will be zoom there will be digital world others but there are but listen thank you i hope you will have a good dinner in in boleyn say hi to mohammed and your and your girl he says hi too good and and really thank you for joining us as we said it's serious serious time 2.5 million infections here in the u.s other times articles that are really sorry it's 10 times higher most probably the number is 25 million at the moment and the real number uh it's uh it's it's quite it's stunning and as you say courtesque absurd what's happening and i hope the people it's just done for the people by the people with the people that something will change and make this better on the seagull talk we will continue on week 14 and next week so they're coming to an end for this week and we have on monday two new york artists great artists organizers curators cami uh is anand me from new york and ebony new ed golden from new york city they believe both together here from the laundromat project and who is an artist performer and choreographer and we have news from kosovo where the national theater has been destroyed a couple of weeks ago because of interests of redevelopment and and others chayton netirai from kosovo who came to la mama not long time ago with lgbt play which was the very first one in kosovo that she presented and they walked around they went around in small places small towns very dangerous thing what he did a fantastic work how how he put it together and he will be joined by uh janina kabunarari she also came to us from from uh romania who will also talk a bit about her situation there on wednesday we hear from france and from friederik aite to ati uh she collaborates with bronola tour and many projects she was at nyu for that lecture performance they're not working with the ballonfest spieler with tomas oba under on a project where they think about the environment and the ideas to have an exhibition about the environment but without air conditioning and without using electricity because if we have to change also what we do insiduosans have to change how do you really do that even in the next season it's a fantastic project where ideas about brecht and ideas about the encounter and the continuous of thinking i think is of importance to us we will hear from the ashtar theater in palestine iman aoun will tell us what it means to be making theater right now in palestine um already on complex complicated conditions politically socially economically artistically and on top of it now we have that virus and then we hear from jamaica the caribbean again the um the english-speaking caribbeans this time and the sakina dia and even the vultures will tell us um how the situation is for theater artists in jamaica and um what they think about or what the consequences are of this virus and in general how it is to make art and on the islands and uh so again levis thank you it was really important for us to hear from you it was really important to share and i think for our listeners we'll have better questions we'll know a little bit more about that big big world we live in any experience as singular and individual but all together it creates something we are all connected we do care for each other so we care about you and your work and uh and the sorrows of life hopefully as theater should be it's a joy for participation in the sorrows of life um but uh it is important and important for us to have listeners and uh to who are there and also there might be something in there for your own life that this of meaning helps you to change to become a better person it helped me so much i learned so much from all the talks and um and i think we have to change authentically ourselves that's this what we're hearing from all our artists we have to also change and take it serious and change then the world that we go into thanks to hall round freely out of emerson college for hosting us thea and the vj it's sensational to be with us now for 14 weeks next week i don't think they really knew we would do it so long and uh now thea has to get up and lose her interest every morning before nine o'clock and she doesn't show it at all it's an unholy time but it means a lot to us and our listeners and of course of the seattle team and young and andy and and everybody and again say hi to boleyn and it's great to hear that things miss you well and yes and and what a great city it is at the moment and you are right american artists are going now to boleyn and used to be paris used to be new york perhaps now it is boleyn's time still as a center you know of something that is working where there's an atmosphere an art is about atmosphere that's being created and then reflected in the work so um well our listeners see you next week i really really hope you can join us and stay with us and bye bye live up bye bye so all of you uh stay safe and uh stay tuned and um see you as we now say see you soon bye bye