Penguin

Written by Amy Golding

I write this whilst sat recovering from intensive weeks of rehearsals, long hours in tech and the opening week of Penguin at Live Theatre. I’ve finally found a moment to reflect on the process and journey of making this show. It’s been long and winding, beautiful, funny, sad, uplifting and heart-breaking. If you’ve seen Penguin you’ll know the show definitely reflects this!

The joy, the responsibility and the questioning anxiety connected with co-creating and directing someone in their debut professional solo show has been a wonderful whirlwind. The autobiographical nature of the work - holding space for someone to tell you their life story and looking after it as best you can brings with it a responsibility that needs to be shouldered, and it’s of course an absolute privilege.

Hamzeh and I met 5 and a half years ago at a drama workshop that I ran at Gosforth Civic Theatre, Newcastle with co-facilitator Joana Geronimo, it was the very first session of The Arriving Project, the creative group for people seeking sanctuary that we started at Curious Monkey as part of the development of HERE (our last show by Lindsay Rodden). The Arriving group is a wonderful project that snowballed and took on a life of its own and still runs to this day. Hamzeh is now something of a celebrity in the group - they have witnessed the various stages of Penguin and finally saw it in all its glory at Live Theatre in September. The pride of that group (that family) after the show was palpable.

Hamzeh and I have been laughing about that first workshop – him and his brother Waseem had no idea what Joana and I were on about, the exercises we ran went in all sorts of brilliant and unexpected directions through a mix of mis-communication and the willingness to throw yourself in and have a go. It was a beautiful moment of theatre in itself.

It was very early on that Hamzeh said he wanted to make a show and would show me videos on his phone of him with the children in Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan making short dramas that would tour to the different districts across the camp, as part of disability awareness campaigns. Clearly he was already an activist theatre maker – we’d got this in common. My instinct was we probably would do this together, but that it would take a long time, firstly to get to know each other and for me to suss out whether he was serious about it, and for Hamzeh it felt important for him to learn the language well enough to perform it in English.

So we started in 2019. Hamzeh had been a regular committed member in the Arriving group and we started meeting together outside of the group sessions, scribbling ideas and diagrams in a notebook. He’d share story after story with me, in no particular order, he would jump from the camp in Jordan to Syria, from childhood, to teenage-hood, to adulthood and back again. I had so many questions, this was a life experience so far away from mine in so many ways, but before I had time to ask all the questions he’d be off again with another story and I was transported somewhere else. We decided to record everything as there was just so much and it felt like once the flood gates were open it was all coming out, Hamzeh had so much he wanted to tell me, he wanted me to understand it all. Some of it remains confidential and I will cherish and look after the stories that he trusted me with that weren’t to make it to the stage. Some stories he felt weren’t safe to share – his mum and much of his family are still in the refugee camp and some family members still in Syria.

I was amazed, confused and angered by some of his stories, I had no idea that so many people lived for so many years in camps, that people who think they are heading somewhere for a few weeks until it’s safe to go home again live out the rest of their lives in a makeshift camp. A place made to be temporary that is anything but temporary. The infrastructure amazed me, the businesses set up and homes made, the ‘community that grew in the desert’. The brilliant resilience of people.

We shared our first 10 minutes of Penguin at the star and shadow as part of a night of different acts put together by D6:Culture In Transit for International Migrants Day. I remember there was a great dance floor after the show that night! The Arriving group bringing the party as ever. Surprisingly, the opening lines of that 10 minute work in progress stuck and remain as the opening lines of the final draft of the script. I think we edited them out, then put them back in again in a later draft. It just shows you that some of the first stories told and first instincts are often the ones to keep hold of. I could see in this first performance that Hamzeh had real potential as a performer - he was untrained with a lot to learn, but had a gorgeous rawness, a penchant for cheeky comedy and a uniqueness and charisma that you couldn’t help but love. It was quite unnerving as a director as he would retain some things but much of our work in the rehearsal room would go out the window and I would never know quite what might happen when he was on stage. He’s certainly one to keep you on your toes!

The audience were interested in this short piece, some found it quite shocking as it went quite quickly to that difficult place – the story of the word ‘penguin’ and how it was used to insult Hamzeh - directly and abruptly addressing ableism in the face. We held back on the reveal of why the play is entitled penguin until much later in the final version, dropping it in beyond the half way point in a moment of dancing the Dabke at a Syrian wedding and then punching the audience in the stomach with it – stunning the auditorium into silence every single night. (Don’t worry if you haven’t seen the show, you do get lifted you back up again soon after!) The play follows a rollercoaster narrative of joy, humour and heartbreak – in just the way it was when Hamzeh shared his life with me in those little rooms in the back of theatres with our voice recorder between us. Just as my eyes would start to water he’d be off on another hilarious anecdote and would take me somewhere else entirely.

Holding space and active listening without allowing your own emotions to show is a real skill, I am working at this, those of you who know me know I am a serious empath and struggle to hide my feelings, it’s certainly something I will have to continue to work on!

So, it was on… Penguin was to be the show we would bubble to come to the stage after HERE. But then of course came that bloody great big pandemic in the middle of it all and everything was all about Zoom. The Arriving group met even more regularly (online) to keep in touch and support each other but Hamzeh became withdrawn from the online sessions. I worried about him a lot. He became nocturnal, playing computer games all night and staying in bed all day. The new exciting life he’d started here in the UK had halted entirely, he couldn’t go to college and our process had stopped as he understandably wasn’t feeling it on Zoom. One day I’d worry about his mental health and the next I’d think he was just living the teenage years he’d missed out on, playing computer games at night and sleeping in (my nephew did this for many years!) I met him a few times outside on the hill by the Angel of the North and we’d look out over the city and catch up. He seemed well but as many of us did during those lockdown days had lost some motivation.   

When we started meeting again it was in short bursts – an R n D here and there for a few days and for a while we never started earlier than after lunch whilst Hamzeh got his sleep routine back in check. I worried during this time that Hamzeh might think I was just stringing him along.. does he believe it’ll ever be a reality? Do I? We were navigating the classic frustrations of the theatre making process - applying for development schemes, residencies and funding pots to make work, waiting a long time to hear back from them and then getting a ‘no’. Hamzeh never said this to me but I was always worried he’d lose trust in me and in Curious Monkey and ask “Why does it all take so long? I thought we were making this big show!”

It finally became a reality with arts council support, a creative team put in place. There was movement training with Nadia, script development with Lindsay, some wonderful days in D6 and Dance City pulling together the script and vision for the show with some brilliant artists on board. It was the moment when Hamzeh’s story became a piece of art that was in the hands of a whole team not just him and I in a room with a voice recorder anymore. It was so important to get the right team, people who work with a lot of care and consideration, people who have some understanding of the middle east (and the north east), it’s traditions and music, and it was really important to have some other Arabic speakers in the room so it wasn’t all so very English.

Now it was a reality and the production machine was moving forward at speed, a brilliant tour had been booked, a team in place, a script complete, a marketing and press campaign launched. Hamzeh was so busy doing media training, movement training, meeting his mentor, having lots of homework to prepare for rehearsals – learning lines and building strength through training exercises. It was all go!

There was one day that I had a massive wobble, asking myself “is this all too much?” - the press interest, the reality of the hard work, the team in place all talking about Hamzeh’s life in abstract arty ways – How do we represent the war in Syria on stage? How do we balance the realities of the difficult things Hamzeh has experienced with caring for our audience? How do we get the right balance of inviting an audience’s gaze onto Hamzeh’s body and the way he moves but not inviting voyeurism? How do we balance vulnerability and empowerment on stage? It was a lot. But seeing Hamzeh relentlessly positive and grounded reassured me and always remembering that Hamzeh’s ambition and my gut instinct was what had brought us this far in the first place, I knew they were to be held on to and trusted.

This was the first time I have worked so closely with a physically disabled artist on a really physical piece of theatre, so there was a learning curve for me and us as an organisation. The company all trained in disability equity awareness, supporting Hamzeh (someone who has lived with physical pain his whole life without ever complaining or asking for anything) to begin to ask for what he needed, to take breaks when he needs them, to ask to have his feet patched up rather than suffering when they hurt from blisters, to get taxis when he’s tired, to get his aching muscles massaged for the first time in his life. We were all learning a lot.

We worked hard to get everything in place for this show as early as possible. Having perfomed ‘Preggers’ - my one woman show I know the pressure of having to remember a whole hour and 15 minutes of lines all to yourself. It’s hard! Add to that dealing with blocking and choreography, props and costume changes, the emotions and vulnerability of sharing something personal with an audience for the first time. AND for Hamzeh having to be line perfect as the whole show will be captioned in two languages! (They will know if you get it wrong!) Getting the set put up in the rehearsal room, all the props and as many costumes as we could in place to play with right from the beginning was so important. The decision was made to do everything we could to make it as easy as it could be for Hamzeh to smash this out the park.

We made agreements early in rehearsals how we would work together in the room, so we could monitor energy levels, when breaks were needed, taking into account the different access needs for all the team. We’d found an incredible assistant director Olivia Furber – who speaks Arabic and so we could spend time translating when it was needed. It turns out there’s a lot of theatre jargon (or bullshit) that we use that is not translatable! This was a really good tool for holding us to account and rephrasing to ustilise simpler, more accessible language, this was so important as the team was made up of people with lots of theatre experience and those totally new to it.

Working in two languages (one of which I don’t speak!) was really interesting. The decisions we made about what would be spoken in English and what would be spoken in Arabic emerged as we found various conventions that made sense for the story but also some words that just sat better in one language or the other. Whether that be to create a more satisfying ‘full stop’ to a scene or a word or phrase that was much funnier, more beautiful or impactful in one language or the other. It made sense that the people (characters) in Hamzeh’s life that are depicted – his family and friends, teachers back home in Syria or in Jordan spoke Arabic and his brother Waseem would speak Arabic but then a mix of Arabic - Geordie for the scenes in Gateshead, reflecting his journey of learning English. Often in a theatre process you always develop a common language with the team in the room – new phrases that emerged from this rehearsal room were the chalk circle ‘portal’, ‘chair-ography’ (the journey of the chair!) and ‘smashing it’ – Hamzeh’s favourite note to receive after a run through!

Alongside the rehearsal process and the lead up to it there was a lot going on outside the rehearsal room. I had to miss day 1 of rehearsals to attend a family funeral and Hamzeh’s wonderful wife had recently arrived in the UK, a very happy time but because of their changing housing needs, they had ended up without anywhere to live. A difficult start for a new marriage. This was an ongoing challenge for Hamzeh throughout the process. Gateshead Council deeming them homeless put them up in a hotel, totally unsuitable for a disabled person with mobility issues on the first floor with a lift that didn’t work. Most break and lunch times Hamzeh, Olivia and I would be on the phone or visiting Citizens Advice Bureau, an advocacy service at Connected Voice, calls and meetings with housing officers and homeless charities and writing letters to drum up support to lobby the council. The housing worker ringing to let Hamzeh know had he two days left in the hotel. On the day he had to move out he went to collect all his suitcases, bringing them all to the rehearsal room, only to later receive a call from the same housing officer saying he could stay for two more days. This happened on more than one occasion and felt like a real insult. In the time I’ve known Hamzeh I’ve rarely seen him low but this day in rehearsals was a low point for him. The physical, emotional and financial implications of moving in and out of accommodation was taking it’s toll. In the end the brilliant Vici Wreford-Sinott and Little Cog stepped in to support us to fund appropriate accommodation in an AirBnb for the remainder of the rehearsal period and run at Live, it was a life saver (and a show saver!)

It was a complex time but Hamzeh finally in a space of his own to be quiet with his wife seriously knuckled down and after a few worrying days where we wondered if we’d bitten off more than we could chew we were proved yet again by Hamzeh’s determination that this show was going to be brilliant despite whatever was thrown in our way. I could see every day Hamzeh lapping up his notes and studying his script religiously, doing his own warm ups, finding extra time to be in the theatre to do his own work outside of rehearsal. He was becoming a confident professional performer right before our eyes. I still didn’t know for real if we would pull off a really great show until the Saturday before tech when I’d got everyone in for an extra day rehearsal as we weren’t quite ready for tech yet, always a nerve wracking, insomnia inducing place to be. But on that Saturday he showed as the real show for the first time, all those notes and all that work suddenly landing, the punchlines – boom, the choreography – bang on and beautiful, the lines all there (almost!). Nadia, Olivia and I all wept – it was the first time I saw the show we had dreamed of together. And just imagine what would happen when we added the incredible lighting design and an audience!

It reinforces my belief that the best training ground is by doing it – it’s hard and its full on but wow the difference in Hamzeh’s performance from his first run through to his opening night was so spectacular. It was electric, adrenalin fuelled and every audience member in there that Wednesday night experienced something really special, you could feel it.. and they all stood at the end and whooped and cheered for this brilliant man doing a brilliant thing.

Let’s bring on this tour and I hope the start of Hamzeh’s brilliant career.

Amy Golding