Oh My Sweet Land's call for compassion

By B. Evans

Oh My Sweet Land is a beautiful, personal piece of theatre that resists easy categorisation. It is artistically and socially valuable, and I recommend you see it. 'Thought provoking' is perhaps an over-used phrase, but it is most definitely applicable here. Oh My Sweet Land got me thinking, and I'm still thinking a week later. I'm thinking about what we ought to ask of political plays, about the relative advantages of different theatrical forms and styles, and about the people of Syria, desperately fleeing their ravaged homeland.

Oh My Sweet Land is an unusual mix of fiction, reportage and food. Actor Corrine Jaber and writer/director Amir Nizar Zuabi created the piece together, as an exploration of the conflict in Syria through the stories of its refugees. Jaber clearly inspired the character she plays – both are half Syrian, half German women living in Paris. The over arching plot is presumably fictional, and is structured around Jaber travelling to Lebanon, Jordan and finally, Syria, in search of Ashraf; her Syrian friend and lover, who left Paris to be with his people. However, at the heart of the play are the stories of the refugees she meets along her way. These stories are true - they are a small sample of the many more Jaber and Zuabi gathered when they spoke to a small portion of the millions of civilians displaced by the conflict in Syria. Jaber tells us her story in the past tense - at the time of the play, she has already returned to the safety of her home in Paris, and she speaks to us from her kitchen, whilst making Kibbeh - a traditional Syrian dish of beef, onions and spices wrapped in pastry and deep-fried. The piece is anchored by the cooking throughout. At times, Jaber's actions serve to reinforce the text - an image of violence strengthened by the grinding of meat as she speaks, for example. But it also offers relief by undercutting it, as when she lets the onions burn because she's caught up in sharing a woman's harrowing account of how 'they' cut open her husband's stomach and stabbed him in the throat in the middle of the street, and when he miraculously survived, they killed him again in the hospital, cutting the tubes that were helping him breathe. "I'll have to chuck this now" Jaber says, when she remembers the charred onions, and we laugh as she scrapes them into the bin and calmly starts chopping again. Jaber said in an interview for the Young Vic that she thinks the cooking is needed to offset the horror, which would otherwise be too much to bear.

In fact, the play wasn't as harrowing as I expected it to be. The danger was always kept at arms length. I didn't cry. I was a bit disappointed by this. I rather like a good bit of theatrical flagellation. But is this a weakness of the play, or a strength? I suspect Jaber and Zuabi could have pounded me until I was a snivelling wreck if they'd wanted to. They could have created an intense mimetic piece of in-yer-face theatre, with Jaber playing one or many refugees, and highlighted their plight in that way, without the framing device of a concerned outsider. I probably would have felt more watching that show. But would I have thought more? As it is, Oh My Sweet Land has quite a reflective tone. I doubt this is accidental. The catharsis offered by the traditional mimetic play, complete with satisfying character arc and resolution, is also a form of escapism. It encourages a clear distinction between the world of the play, and the world in which you live. Jaber and Zuabi don't want us to make that distinction. They want us to remember that these horrors are happening in the real world.

Political theatre often favours a non-naturalistic form. As Brecht observed, it is sometimes important to put the spotlight on the audience, to remind us that we are watching a play, and encourage us to inspect our own lives in light of what we are seeing onstage. Jaber uses some Brechtian distancing techniques; she alone voices all characters, and perhaps most powerfully, she speaks directly to the audience, frequently maintaining eye contact with an individual, not allowing us to retreat into the shadows as mere observers, but keeping us connected, complicit. However, the play was not as forceful as I thought it might be in this respect, either. There was no clear message, or moral, beyond the obvious consensus that the suffering of Syrian refugees is terribly sad. Part of me wanted to be presented with an angry polemic, giving me arguments and answers and demanding action. Matt Trueman says in his review in The Telegraph, 'It’s a cri de coeur, not a call to arms.' I agree. It is not a call to arms. But maybe this isn't a flaw. Maybe the mistake is our assumption that a play about a political problem has a responsibility to tell us how to fix that problem.

I believe it is important that we don't discourage people from making theatre about big contemporary issues just because they don't have a solution to offer. A solution to the entrenched and thorny civil war in Syria is a big ask. It is tempting to rest on that very fact, to let ourselves off the hook, and choose not to think about it at all, because it's too complicated. I relate to this instinct; I have turned off the news because it all seemed so hopeless and depressing. But we must resist the urge to cocoon ourselves in a defensive layer of disinterest. We must also avoid dismissing something out of hand because it doesn't have all the answers. Caitlin Moran, discussing the Occupy movement in her book Moranthology, said: ‘The protester, I find to be a beautiful thing. An objection made flesh, a whole body made over to do one thing – voice disapproval, simply by standing somewhere.' Moran defends protesters against the idea that if they are not able to offer a better alternative to the current banking system, for example, then they have no right to criticise it, and they should shut up and go home. She argues that criticism is the vital first step. It is important and valuable to highlight a problem. You may not have a solution, but if enough people listen to you, and agree that something needs to be done, at least one of them is likely to come up with an idea.

Theatre can be a powerful tool for highlighting problems. To me, one of the most precious things about theatre is that it is centred on the idea of common humanity. We love Shakespeare because he articulated fundamental truths, and beautifully expressed feelings we all relate to. The best theatre 'holds a mirror up to nature' and helps us to better understand each other and ourselves. The feeling that in some fundamental sense we are all the same fosters a feeling of compassion for our fellow humans, which is incredibly valuable. Of Oh My Sweet Land, Jaber said: ‘It’s about people’s stories. And if we can, for an hour, put people in touch with other people’s stories, through something as beautiful as cooking, then already that’s enormous, if we achieve that, that’s an enormous achievement.’ I believe she and Zuabi achieve that noble goal. I won't forget the little girl with wounds on her scalp from shrapnel, who was glad that they were no longer infected with worms, and told Jaber 'I'm much better now'. The play is not a call to arms, it is a call to compassion.

Of course the news tells us that there are problems, but when you hear about millions (yes, MILLIONS) of Syrian refugees, the sheer magnitude of the numbers renders them almost meaningless. One personal detail often has a greater impact than the most overwhelming statistics. Take the woman who gave her children sleeping pills because they were so afraid at bedtime, and then couldn't wake them when the bombs started falling, so had to run away carrying them in her arms. Obviously the method of delivery also significantly determines how receptive we are to the information. Jaber is our way in. She is friendly, calm, funny. She doesn’t make us feel guilty. She admits that she didn’t really want to go into Syria. But as she cooks, she tells us about the people she met, and in this way, she brings them a step closer, so that they are no longer statistics, they are real. And they are much harder to ignore. Jaber's delivery of their stories is very simple, almost understated. They are not dramatised, they are just reported. I had an inspiring director at drama school who once said that if you think you can make Shakespeare better by ‘acting’ it – by imposing something on the words by saying them in a particular way, then you are not only incredibly arrogant, you are wrong. The words are enough on their own. Jaber’s delivery reminded me of this. She just said the words.

My favourite thing about Oh My Sweet Land is probably the lack of pretence. It is a deeply honest offering. At the very beginning, Jaber takes the time to chop an onion. It doesn't feel performed, and it is utterly captivating in its authenticity. The tangible nature of the cooking - the scent of sizzling onion and spices filling the room, signals that this is for real. It is thrilling. Jaber has an easy, natural presence. When she caught my eye, I didn't feel like I was being acted at, I felt like I was being spoken to. I felt that it mattered to her that I was there, and that I listened. Afterwards, I didn't feel like I'd been to the theatre, I felt like I'd been to a dear friend's house for dinner, and they'd told me that their family abroad was having a terrible time. When I got home, and started trying to write a review, I found myself googling 'history of Syria conflict' instead, and reading about it for hours. The play didn't actually tell me very much about it, but it told me enough to make me care, and that is what matters.

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