Hannah Khalil: Plays of Arabic Heritage

Plan D; Scenes from 73* Years; A Negotiation; A Museum in Baghdad; Last of the Pearl Fishers; Hakawatis

Hannah Khalil, Chris White

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781350242210
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

This is the first ever collection of plays by Palestinian-Irish playwright Hannah Khalil; the first woman of Arab heritage to have a main-stage play at the RSC. It encompasses a decade's worth of plays exploring her Arab heritage, drawing on family histories as well as significant events in the Arab World. They were all written during a period that included the end of the war in Iraq, the intensification of the occupation of Palestine and the birth and disillusion of the so called Arab Spring. The plays included are set in both a historical and modern context. They include a feminist take on 1001 nights and the Scheherazade story; an exploration of Gertrude Bell, the Museum in Baghdad and Britain's role in the birth of the Iraq; plus two plays looking at the Palestinian experience, one based on a family living through the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, the other an epic collage that moves in time from 1948 to present day. This anthology also includes a radio play set in Dubai and a monologue about the power and legacy of artefacts. It's notable that these plays offer a plethora of non-stereotypical roles for actors of Arab heritage. Through the six plays included the reader can trace a variety of approaches to storytelling, a host of memorable characters and some unforgettable stories. Plays include: Plan D
Scenes from 73* Years
A Negotiation
Museum in Baghdad
Last of the Pearl Fishers
Hakawatis

A Museum in Baghdad

In 1926, the nation of Iraq is in its infancy, and British archaeologist Gertrude Bell is founding a museum in Baghdad. In 2006, Ghalia Hussein is attempting to reopen the museum after looting during the war. Decades apart, these two women share the same goals. But in such unstable times, questions remain about who and what this museum is for? Whose culture are we preserving? And why does it matter when people are dying?

Ten characters, 5 males and 5 females.

A Museum in Baghdad was co-commissioned by the Royal Lyceum Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. It premiered at the Swan Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon, on 11 October 2019. Directed by Erica Whyman, designed by Tom Piper and with Arabic translations by Hassan Abdulrazzak, Nourredine Bessadi, Yasmeen Ghrawi and Rasoul Saghir, it had the following cast:

Leonard Woolley	David Birrell
Layla	Houda Echouafni
Gertrude Bell	Emma Fielding
Kidnapper/Prime Minister	Ali Gadema
Ghalia	Rendah Heywood
Salim	Zed Josef
Nasiya	Nadi Kemp-Sayfi
Sam York	Debbie Korley
Mohammed	Riad Richie
Abu Zaman	Rasoul Saghir

Playwright’s Intro

Sometimes you think a play is one thing – but later discover it’s actually something else entirely. A Museum in Baghdad started life as a play about a woman called Gertrude Bell. It all began when Plan D was on in London and I went for a stroll around the National Portrait Gallery. There was an exhibition of Victorian Women Explorers, in which a picture of Gertrude caught my eye. The description card said something like ‘aristocrat, explorer, diplomat, spy: travelled widely in the Middle East, spoke every dialect of Arabic and set up the Museum of Iraq in Baghdad’. I had never heard of Gertrude and set out to find out more – I read all her letters and diaries thanks to the University of Newcastle’s online archive. Her life was so fascinating I decided I wanted to write about her. Then, not long after, the brilliant Arab British Centre in London hosted a talk by an inspiring Iraqi archaeologist, Dr Lamia Al-Gailani Werr. She was part of the team spearheading the ‘clean up’ job at the Iraq Museum in Baghdad after the American invasion and subsequent looting. Her talk presented images of artefacts stolen, destroyed, damaged and some returned. I was engrossed. Then at the end of the presentation her final slide was of a man in a blue boiler suit – the caretaker of the museum. She said, ‘I always end my talks with a picture of him, because it feels as though he has always been there and as though he will always be there’. At that moment an idea crystallised in my head. My Gertrude Bell play wasn’t about Gertrude: it was about the Museum in Baghdad and it needed to cover two times, the original opening by Gertrude in 1926 and the re-opening post-looting in 2006. These two times would be linked by a timeless caretaker who I would name Abu Zaman, in Arabic ‘the father of time’. So began a huge rewriting and editing process that eventually became A Museum in Baghdad.

Cast

1926:

Gertrude Bell, 57, from Durham, presently an archaeologist

Salim, 20,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Plan D
• Scenes from 73* Years
• A Negotiation
• A Museum in Baghdad
• Last of the Pearl Fishers
• Hakawatis: The Women of the Arabian Nights
• Copyright