Background 2: Where We Come From - Toronto Fringe
Once I was invited into this one person’s bedroom, I have never met that person in my life, and yet I felt comfortable and excited to be in that room. Slowly, I began to reveal part of myself to the person. Slowly, all the voices from people’s judgments and the noise of everyday life started calming down little after the person said “здравствуйте”. Yes, the person was Russian… but I didn’t think that was a relevant thing to mention… I didn’t think it was relevant at the time.
For my first journal, I wanted to speak about In Sundry Languages (Babayants) because it is one of the shows that meant something personal to me and that I literally experienced. Russian actor Yuri Ruzhyev at the end of the performance asked an audience member on stage who speaks a language other than any he ‘understands’ to join him on stage. When he said “здравствуйте”, I awkwardly responded with “hello” even though my native tongue is Arabic (Lebanese). Then, he reassured me that there are no obligations to speak a certain language. He also said a word that sounded like Russian, “Ю́рий”, which I later noticed was his name as he pointed towards his body which I later responded to with “Maher”. I started becoming awkward again when he pointed upwards and said other Russian words to which I didn’t know how to respond to as there were audience members who did not understand neither of our languages. He reminded me once again that no one was watching and that he invited me to his bedroom. That is when things became more intimate. In that moment, I began realizing that our connection wasn’t a linguistic one, but an intellectual one beyond any complex forms of discourse. His last question was, “how do you say ‘Kiss me’ in your country” to which I responded to with “"بوسني followed by a kiss on the cheek.
Sharing with you my doubts with the language barrier that presented itself as a limitation at first, is one of the many factors that made the show effective due to its considerations and direct application to what role the context in which the performance was set in. As Knowles discusses these latter three elements in his essay, what made this piece so impactful to me is that this is a highly devised theatre piece based on actual lived multi-lingual experiences by actors and -from the reception side- that it was highly relevant contextually and personally (Knowles 17). It was meaningful because it is highly representative of an existing multilingual culture not only abroad, but also, and specifically in Toronto.
In her essay, McMahon goes beyond transnationalism to emphasize that international festivals can highlight serious precuring debates within a country about the country’s emerging national identity such as Toronto’s changing identity (2). So, theatre must adapt with it and become more representative and discuss relevant topics or forms. She adds that festivals can facilitate such discussions! (5)
To sum-up, my experience In Sundry Languages, made me realize how different that production was from anything I’ve seen at Fringe and in Toronto theatre in general, and how many people in the audience related to such a piece. This international piece made me think of the implications on Toronto theatre’s denial of its own diverse identity. This is not to say Toronto must dismiss all its existing forms, but is yet allow itself to be more inclusive in which all identities and sides are proactively working to integrate (theatre, practitioners, & audience). As this production and my experience with it proved, finding common ground becomes simpler once we allow the experience to unfold between audience, practitioners, and the general cultural context. So, the answer to where I come from? I am Lebanese Canadian and I can’t wait to figure out what my place in Lebanese, Canadian, international theatre will be.
Works Cited
In Sundry Languages. Dir. Art Babayants. Theatre Passe Muraille 16 Ryerson Ave, Toronto. 9 July 2017. Performance. Toronto Fringe Festival.
Christina S. McMahon "Introduction — Global Casting Calls: Performing (Trans)National Identity on Festival Circuits" Christina S. McMahon Recasting transnationalism through performance [electronic resource] : theatre festivals in Cape Verde, Mozambique, and Brazil /, Theater and Dance, University of California-Santa Barbara, USA. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 1-34.
Richard Paul Knowles "Introduction" p.1-7 and "Theory: Towards a materialist semiotic" p.9-23 Reading the Material Theatre. Cambridge University Press 2004. p.1-23. Print.
