The Big Interview: Sonja Linden
September 16, 2008
Sonja Linden is an award-winning playwright whose plays have been produced on radio, on the London stage, and in regional theatres across the UK and the United States. He new play Welcome to Ramallah, co-authored with Adah Kay, receives its world premiere at the Arcola from 23 September to 18 October 2008.
Tell us about Welcome to Ramallah
The play is set over one night in an apartment in Ramallah, a city in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in 2008. At its heart are events that took place in 1948, the 60th anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel, and the start of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe).
The play centres on the characters of two British-born Jewish sisters, Mara and Nat and two Palestinians, an uncle and a nephew, Salim and Daoud. The younger sister, Mara, believes in the Palestinian cause, and despite being Jewish, has decided to live and work in the West Bank. Over time she has become friendly with her neighbour Daoud, a relationship that is called into question when her older sister comes on a reluctant visit. What starts as awkward conviviality between the four characters, begins to spiral downwards after a shocking revelation that links the two families over contested land. It’s strong meat, but there is humour and lightness too, and I’m hoping audiences will be pulled in a number of different directions emotionally and politically as the play progresses and leave the theatre arguing!
Was it difficult to handle the politically charged aspects of the play in your writing?
Difficult only in the sense that Adah, my co-writer and I wrestled for a long time with our original ‘mission’ to tell a story that communicated the hardships Palestinians experienced under an increasingly harsh occupation, while not wanting to fall into the trap of writing a polemic. In the early days we wanted to reference all the horrors – checkpoint abuses, the impact of the Wall, the day to day humiliations and deprivations. But little by little we pared this down and focused on the experiences and points of view of these four characters, limiting our ‘mission’ to what works dramatically. We wanted to tell a good story first and foremost, one that had an emotional as well as political truth at its heart.
What was your inspiration for writing this play?
My co-writer! I heard through mutual friends about this amazing woman Adah Kay, who despite having been brought up in a strongly Zionist household, decided to live and work in Ramallah with her architect husband Tom, over a period of 5 years – 2001-2006. I was already very interested in the Israel/Palestinian conflict myself, and very disturbed, as a Jew, at what I considered to be a distortion of Jewish values in Israel and the oppression of another people in ‘my’ name.
How involved will you be with the production process?
As writer I am involved to the extent of taking part in the audition process, working with the director on aspects of the political background of the piece, as well as the characters and also being involved in the early stages of rehearsal. As co-artistic director of iceandfire I also have an involvement in the production side.
Have you worked at the Arcola before and what are your thoughts on the venue?
We haven’t worked there before and it’s a great opportunity to work at a venue which has such an excellent reputation for supporting exciting production. They have produced and hosted some really quality work so it’s good to be part of such a thriving theatre.
Tell us a little about your path into playwriting and your influences
I started writing plays in the mid 80s. I had absolutely no background in drama or writing and at the time I really didn’t know what drew me to playwriting as opposed to other forms of writing – I just wanted to write. I was lucky because this was just at a time when women in theatre were getting together to try and break the glass ceiling. Up till then there had been very few women writers and directors and limited roles for women actors. Suddenly there was this groundswell and with the formation of the Women’s Theatre Trust led by Sue Parrish and Jules Wright, we were offered fanstastic writing workshops and inspiring talks by women in theatre like Caryl Churchill and Pam Gems.
Cora Caplan gave a talk accounting for women’s absence historically in theatre, one of them being that playwriting is a form of public speaking – traditionally a male-only domain. Only years later did I link this with my unconscious motivation to be a playwright, for shy as I am about speaking in public, I clearly feel compelled to ’speak out’ about things I think are important, and have tried to do this through my work. As for who influences me…the plays of Max Frisch, Arthur Miller, Ibsen. Amongst contemporary writers, I was recently very impressed with Mark Ravenhill’s series of short plays, Shoot, Get Treasure, Repeat.
What are your future plans beyond this play?
Apart from writing more plays, continuing to develop iceandfire which is now in its 6th year. Our outreach network, Actors For Human Rights, will be launching Palestine Monologues which I also scripted, on the 4th October which is a verbatim script designed to raise awareness about the ongoing situation in the Occupied Territories and acts a partner piece to Welcome to Ramallah. The network also has a new script detailing the lives of undocumented migrants in London, The Illegals, launching on November 21st at the Soho Theatre. The culmination of our Protect the Human playwriting competition which we run in partnership with Amnesty International UK takes place from December 1st - 3rd also at Soho with rehearsed readings of the finalists. The winning play will have additional readings at Theatre Royal Plymouth, West Yorkshire Playhouse and Birmingham Rep on December 10th, International Human Rights Day. Plans for 2009 include a regional tour of our play for young people, Separated and, hopefully, the UK tour of Welcome to Ramallah - so lots to plan for!