Homeland: An Unsolicited Guest Reviewer Speaks Out!

“How do you even begin to plan a show like this?!” I exclaimed.

Friday night, late, Granville Island, Fringe Festival, opening night. A show that I hardly knew anything about but looked fascinating from the brief introduction a friend sent me .... this was going to be interesting.

The little blurb in the email I received and the program for the show hardly told me anything I wanted to know so I took a deep breath, made myself comfortable between my friends, one Canadian and the other Iranian.

Titled “Home Land”, created by an acclaimed Iranian/Canadian couple Setareh Delzendeh and Reza Moghadas, performed by an Iranian actor/performer Bahareh Yaraghi, I assumed it was to be a play about leaving Iran. I was wrong. It was about so much more. SO SO MUCH more.

Against a beautifully intricate backdrop of a stunning collage made from handmade papers, various letters and mailing packets, Bahareh performed while a documentary by Setareh and Reza played on the backdrop, with a surprising effect: the screen was by no means the typical movie viewing, clear, white, smooth surface and yet the texture and the colours and the imperfections of the hand made screen, added a very lovely and human dimension to the movie as it played.

And it WAS all about that human factor. The documentary was a series of dialogues, delivered by people that were never paired with the names that were introduced to the audience as the performers moved onto the stage to start the show.  Surrounded by Reza on one side - delivering a gorgeous mixture of electronically mixed tracks and live pieces played on guitar, keyboard and setar or saghar - and on the other side by Lorenzo Castelli weaving his way with dynamic musicality through various percussive instruments, from Cajon to tubular bells and djembe - Bahareh did her thing.

And boy did she ever perform! At first, I didn’t connect with her. Watched her expressions curiously as she acted the part of a newcomer / tourist in a big city. But she grew on me ... and fast. I started caring for her, and for the characters in the documentary that she portrayed, as each weaved the threads of his or her own story of dislodgement.

As the film [performance - Ed.] progressed I began to feel my attachment and care for each person grow. I felt as if I have gotten to know each one, even though again there were no names given. Nationalities were hinted at and these men and women were from everywhere and anywhere. From turbulent countries like Iran, Ethiopia and Russia to those who had moved to Canada in search of a new life and identity, such as Jewish American, Colombian and Japanese and even those Canadians of mixed heritage or of native decent whose stories of displacement and belonging was a pleasantly surprising inclusion in the documentary.

This growing care and interest in each character, I believe was partially due to their expressive words no doubt, but Bahareh’s movements and animated face brought them to life. She moved everywhere on the stage which I later found out, she had only gotten to explore in the last few hours before the show.  And space was of vital importance as she moved around from sequence to sequence.

There were pockets of brilliances that were particularly engaging such as her rendition of a mundane nine to five day – a routine that could befall even the most battle-weary of immigrants. She was also particularly expressive when donning various masks on her face, and in turn questioning each newly assumed role.

A particularly memorable moment was when, coupled with hauntingly beautiful music of Reza, the deep vibrating beats of Djembe of Lorenzo and the unforgiving spot light from the back, she delivered a particularly poignant interpretation of a Iranian woman going through a life of political activism and its inevitable outcome.

I found it exceptionally moving and it brought streams of tears to my eyes. I had felt the tears tickling my eyes before that moment but her performance was so true, so very honest and open and generous that I let them come and they flowed like a small sad river. I had come to become attached to her character and it was heartbreaking to see her hurt.

By the end of the one-hour show I simply did not want it to end.

As an after-thought, it occurred to me that just like meeting a brand new person for the first time, specially one from a culture unknown to us, perhaps the first reaction IS one of distant curiosity if at all. But once experiences are shared, once hearts and minds are opened and a dialogue is started, albeit a silent one in this case, that is when the true connection happens. When we are able to find common words in all our countless variations of languages on this earth. That is when we are ready to accept that perhaps we all speak the same language after all, just happen to have different accents.

“How do you even begin to plan a show like this?!” I exclaimed to any one who would listen! Once the lights were back on, that was the primary thought in my head. That to plan and put together the thought process behind a performance piece like that, one has to be infinitely creative and without a doubt visionary in ways that I could never imagine possible.

The show was rich in layers. Every move planned, meaningful, every dance touching and real, every soundless scream deafening, every beat of that djembe, every scratch of the cymbal, every trickle of fast fingers on the Cajon or guitar acted as one piece of the puzzle that was more intricate than any performance I have had the pleasure of seeing in a long time.

I later found out that this show has been performed a year before, not featuring the wonderful actor Bahareh but a modern dancer. Upon her unavailability to perform in Vancouver, Setraeh, the production designer and the brain behind the piece, having worked with Bahareh before had invited her to consider the project.

I also learned about Bahareh’s doubts about not being a dancer. She had also expressed some thoughts to her family members about her abilities to pull off a performance in a silent but immensely complicated piece of physical theater. Even though she has been an actress since the age of 6 and have always worked steadily since graduating from Humber collage in Toronto, her slight insecurity endeared her to me even more. And she need not have been worried one bit. I could not have guessed at any of it as she delivered her parts with astonishing clarity and confidence.

And I could not stop thinking how very glad I was that she was not a trained dancer. Even though she has had apprehensions about performing the dances, I truly felt that the piece would not have been as moving had she BEEN trained. She was to portray each person in the movie and none of them were a dancer. Had she performed their words through measured and technically brilliant moves, it would have lost that human touch that seemed vital to the language of the show. Every twirl, roll, sway of arms and hips seem to come from the words themselves and not from a choreography. And that is something a dancer works a lifetime to achieve. Simply stunning.

I would go see this show again; this time with a tissue paper in my bag and my husband so I could hold his hand when things got hard again to watch. I had not seen a piece of theatre in a long time that has moved me from start to finish like I experienced with “Home Land”. I drove home, with images of my own “homes” playing in my head, coupled with the ending words of the film, a beautiful Rumi poem, spoken by a woman who had chosen seclusion, by “immigrating” to a land of 100 acres out side of the city of Toronto.

“Home Land” to me was not necessarily a show about immigration although most who were interviewed in the documentary have been displaced, either by choice or circumstance. But it IS in fact possible to be OF a place and yet not be truly home. And that is what the piece became towards the end. Where is home after all? And does it matter how you get there? And how will you find peace in your soul if you are in fact far from your home of choice? Will you be able to find new pleasures in your circumstance? To learn to live in a new way, to find a new home?