| All Souls Quarterly Review | ||
| Vol. VIII, No. 4 | Winter 2003-2004 | |
ISIGHT: A DUAL LIFE— by Erin Osbourn Adapted from a review written by Erin Osbourn, a graduate student at New York University studying journalism and politics with a focus on interfaith education. Four All Souls groups co-sponsored a one-woman play written and performed by Kathryn Leila Buck on January 29 in Friendship Hall and attracted a large and appreciative audience audience drawn from the Journey Towards Wholeness, the Peace Task Force, the Women’s Alliance, the UU-UNO and many members of the community at large. Buck, 26, is the daughter of a Lebanese mother and American diplomat father, and grew up in Kuwait, Oman, Iraq, Canada and Washington, D.C. “ISite” began as her thesis for High Honors at Wesleyan University, where she received her bachelor’s degree in theater. She has since performed it both domestically and internationally, and at the U.S. State Department. In May of 2000, it won “best play” at the Riant Women’s Theatre Festival in New York. “ISight” is Buck’s reaction to a life torn between the Arab and the Western worlds. The performance addresses Buck’s personal experience growing up in the Middle East and America, and how she has had to bridge the gap between identifying with her Arab heritage and being American. “We can put down roots wherever we are planted, but that does not mean it is easy,” she says in her play. That is the message of “ISite.” “I took my first flight in the womb,” Buck says during her performance. “In a way I was born in flight.” At one point, she describes watching the news from her home in Canada during the Gulf War and seeing a U.S. scud missile land six blocks from her childhood home in Baghdad. “People live there!” she shouts. At another point, she recounts when she first saw the American movie “Courage Under Fire” and realized that she and her friends were mourning for different people, she for her old friends living in Baghdad during the war, and her friends for the movie’s central character, played by American actress Meg Ryan. Buck uses religion to illustrate this gap. Covered in an abaya, a traditional Muslim dress, she kneels and begins to chant the Muslim call to prayer. Gunfire sounds through the speakers and Buck runs to hide in a corner of the stage. “It is a beautiful sound,” Buck says of the prayer during the show. “One we hear in the U.S. only on newscasts in association with terrorists.” She explained her thoughts further after the show. “Looking at any place from the outside you cannot understand its complexity. It makes me sad that our lives are so busy that we don’t take time to look beyond what we are told” she said. The notion that different cultures misunderstand one another is a recurring theme in “ISite.” In one scene, Buck depicts an American student discussing a class on the Middle East with her friend over the telephone as she prepares to go out for the evening. As she puts on makeup, tweezes her eyebrows, and sucks in while putting on tight stockings and a skirt she says, “Can you believe Muslim women can’t just leave their houses as they are?” She acknowledges the difficulty faced by people of any background when trying to find a sense of home in new surroundings. “Right now my focus is on illuminating Arab cultures. It’s important to convey the Arab-American experience. The performance tackles issues of preserving one’s heritage while trying to assimilate to a new culture over the course of three generations. Buck’s grandfather, Jeddo, her mother and Buck herself have all dealt with it in their own way, creating complex identities. This play is not just about that, though. “At the core it’s about human beings, and the culture aspect is just one layer of that,” Buck said. During a discussion session held after the performance she describes the catharsis she found in crafting such a play. “I went from artsy-shmartsy Wesleyan to visiting conservative Saudi Arabia, where women must cover themselves and cannot drive. I was angry being there so I wrote this play to find out where I am in this spectrum.” Audience member Liddy Paterson called the performance fascinating. “It gives us awareness to step out of ourselves as Americans and learn more about other cultures,” said Paterson, a committee member from All Souls’ anti-racism group, Journey Towards Wholeness. “I hope we can somehow get more informal conversation going as a way to get to know each other.” The Rev. Jan Carlsson-Bull was the moderator for a post performance discussion. “This performance is sui generis—one of a kind,” she said. “It is appropriate for such joint sponsorship by our community, building and social justice advocacy groups.” Buck concludes the play by saying, “Sometimes I feel like the ocean, touching so many shores at once. We all take our shape from the lands we touch. And every time I touch down in new soil, I see myself for the first time.”
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