Eden Court One Touch Theatre, Inverness, 13 June 2008

Faroque Khan in Jihad

CONCEIVED and directed by Faroque Khan and written by Troy Fairclough, Jihad: Inner Struggle is a thought-provoking play which in the context of the global “War on Terror” seeks to personalise the ultimate struggle for meaning within. The meaning of the word Jihad is expanded in this production beyond the immediate associations with religious fanaticism to something more immediate and personal, regardless of the background of the audience.

The premise: “Two men share a house. One is a British Asian Ugandan of an Islamic background, the other an Israeli of Jewish background” sets the scene for inevitable conflict. However, there is more to unite the two characters throughout the play than divide them.

Actors Faroque Khan and Dusan Djurovic are equally matched energies on stage, and the intimacy of the OneTouch Theatre is well suited to a production of this kind. Every movement, gesture and sound, however small, registers. In the play’s opening scenes one character could be read as the subconscious foil to the other, or an awakening conscience, two halves of the same person in a kind of interior cohabitation.

Difference gives way to similarity and parallel dialogue is used to great effect as the play progresses, each character revealing individual experience but using the same language to describe their inner feeling. Descriptions of sex and war conjure the same emotional response in both characters, similarly the description of God the Father and the paternal Father are entwined.

Movement direction by both actors is vigorous and energetic, adding much to visual dialogue that equalises the two characters. Their return to the “beginning”, a kind of dance of human mythology/history is fuelled by shared aggression. From the first moment of life evoked by the figures of God and Adam in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel to evolution onto two legs and testosterone fuelled military goose-stepping, the sequence reduces human individuation to sweeping movements of history and belief.

Paradoxically the acknowledgement that in essence we all strive for a kind of Jihad “from the cradle to the grave”, reinterprets this idea as an individual path, a striving for self-perfection and human acknowledgement. This fundamental need is at the heart of the play irrespective of religious or cultural difference. “For answers we must start at the beginning” and go back to what makes us human.

Set design by Caroline Stanton creates an interior receding space punctuated by cubby holes of compartmentalised personal belongings and television monitors. Together with Lighting Design by Paul Sorley and Sound Design by Daniel Padden, the staging is evocative and adaptable, able to convey scenes of real violence, or moments that are surreal and dreamlike.

Warped mirrors on set add to this sense of fluid reality in which nothing is entirely fixed. There are scenes starkly lit so that they that read like photographs taken by a war correspondent contrasted with interior dialogues of light, sound and subconscious movement. The reality is both front page and deeply personal, and this is a fascinating mix given the topical subject matter so often clouded by media hysterics. The baseline here is human, alive.

The play is episodic by nature and contains many striking sequences. Although I am not entirely convinced by it as a complete artistic statement, I have to admire a production that places the difficult question of “How do you reconcile what you experience in the world outside with what you feel inside?” squarely at the feet of each member of the audience.

© Georgina Coburn, 2008

Links

• Eden Court Theatre