Out of a crisis comes drama

A collaboration between British and Iraqi actors is set to be one of the plays of the season, writes Kate Kellaway
Sunday January 22, 2006
The Observer
Could a play be a weapon? Could it be an instrument of peace? It is unusual to meet a director who feels comfortable about making any claims for what theatre might actively do. Andrew Steggall is unusual: he is directing an extraordinary project, a new version of Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale in English and Arabic with Iraqi and British actors. He is clever, young and, as he puts it, not 'risk-averse'.

The casting involved several trips to Iraq. And he plans to take the production, which opens this week at the Old Vic, to Baghdad in the spring. His idealism is wonderful, stubborn and nerve-racking. He knows a single play is not going to bring peace to the Middle East, but he believes in its message of collaboration and hope.
The Soldier's Tale was written in 1918, based on an old Russian folk legend in which a soldier sells his soul for limitless riches. In this agile new version, Rebecca Lenkiewicz and Abdulkareem Kasid have each freely interpreted Charles Ferdinand Ramuz's original libretto. The two versions run in parallel. Only the bilingual will understand all (scripts with translations from the Arabic will be on sale). In addition to Stravinsky's score, there will be Iraqi and Arabic music, composed by Ahmed Mukhtar, who plays the oud, a sort of lute.
Last year, Steggall directed a one-off performance of The Soldier's Tale, translated by Jeremy Sams. At the end of the evening, he told the audience he intended to take the play to Iraq. As early as spring 2004, he had started to feel 'an increasing weight in my mind, a sense of embarrassment' about not knowing what was happening in Iraq. And a 'perhaps melodramatic' sense that the balance was starting to tip, that we might be on the brink of a Third World War
In May 2005, the night before he flew to Baghdad for the first time, his mind was in overdrive. 'There is a lot of anxiety which is unwarranted because nothing is going to happen to you.' Arriving in Iraq, he was overpowered, finding it 'completely beautiful'. But he felt guilt and confusion, too. 'Should I be there at all? Am I bringing extra danger to the people guarding me?' He learned not to stay anywhere public for longer than 15 minutes. 'Nothing ever happens opportunistically.' He met Moufid al Jazairi, the Minister of Culture, 'a great guy, hugely enthusiastic and engaged'. Two or three months later, al Jazairi was replaced by a former policeman, Nuri Farhan al-Rawi (Steggall is still incredulous at the idea of a policeman as Minister of Culture).
Everywhere Steggall went, the reactions to his project were positive. The actors at Iraq's National Theatre were welcoming, surprised only by Steggall's youth. He ran some workshops, getting by with pidgin Arabic and lots of gesturing. It was moving to discover that 'cultural language is shared', that it is a 'simple thing to do a play together'.
But on the second trip to Baghdad, in September, he came unstuck. 'We got thrown out by the ambassador. We arrived on a bad day. The embassy hadn't realised we were coming.' A week later, Steggall went to Sulaymaniyah, in northern Iraq, to audition eight actors. He was looking for men who could act naturalistically (the traditional Iraqi style tends towards the declamatory). They worked together in the Red House, a former Baathist barracks, where Kurdish rebels were once held, tortured and executed by Saddam's men. It is called the Red House because it has seen so much blood. The set is based on it and there are plans to organise an exhibition of photographs, by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, inspired by it.
The first time I spoke to Steggall was on his mobile phone over New Year. We didn't talk long because he was about to treat the Iraqis - Alaa Rasheed, Falah al Flayeh and Deaa al Deen - to an English breakfast at the Waldorf. None of them had been out of Iraq before. I didn't catch up with them until a few days later in the rooms at the top of the Old Vic, where, for an hour, I watched them rehearse.
Everyone looked exhausted. On one side of the room were Julian Glover, the British narrator, and Ciaran McMenamin, the soldier. On the other, their Iraqi counterparts Alaa Rasheed, the soldier, and Falah al-Flayeh, the narrator. The devil, on that afternoon, was indisposed. Nothing had prepared me for the emotional effect of hearing the two languages in one room. Steggall hopes audiences will see that 'the two soldiers are one: the universal soldier'.
After the rehearsal, we sat in a circle: Alaa Rasheed, Falah al Flayeh, Hayder Daffer, the Iraqi film-maker who was our interpreter, and Steggall. The Iraqis were polite about London, a 'beautiful city' in which people 'like hard work' (much eye-rolling at Steggall). In Baghdad, Falah said the situation was 'so bad but we must be patient and wait to get help. It is like Godot. Now we live in a bad dream but maybe if we wake up, it will be even worse'.
They spoke of homesickness. Alaa Rasheed explained: 'I am single, I miss my home, my land, my mother.' But they are all committed to The Soldier's Tale. Falah said: 'I like it because the aim is to reject war.' Falah added: 'Bush is the devil and the soldier has done a deal. The question is: how great is the cost?'
How do they think the play will affect audiences in Baghdad? An extended conversation followed. Hayder summed up: 'They will agree with it because it rejects war. They will remember the friends they lost in this bad war in Iraq. But they might think Ciaran [the British soldier] is the enemy.' Andrew interjected. He trusts that, eventually, they will see he is their friend. The Iraqis replied with one word: 'Inshallah.'
· 'The Soldier's Tale' is at the Old Vic, London SE1 from Thursday to 4 Feb.