MUSSAB AL-TUWAIJARI - a sad unnecessary death.

Musaab Al-Tuwaijari, playwright, socialworker, and soon to be father, was killed on 7th June this year.  He was helping a client who stabbed him.  A shocking waste of a gifted man.

On September 3rd Theater Uberzwerg in Saarbruken will be playing Warrior Square in his memory. Tickets are free and a colection will be taken.  I'm moved that it is thought my play can do some small thing to help his widow and family.

Below is a press release from the theatre, and I have attached a link to an obituary written by a friend of his on the SEDUCE - Stategies Against Brutalisation  - website, in English.

https://schloss-post.com/obituary/

PRESS RELEASE.

On the 7th of June this year the Red Cross employee Musaab Al-Tuwaijari was killed by an mentally traumatized refugee from Syria.
 
In remembrance of him and to support his family (his wife is pregnant), we will play WARRIOR SQUARE on September 3rd.
Free entrance and we ask for donations instead.
Musaab Sadeq Khaleel Al-Tuwaijari was born in Baquba (Iraq) in 1987 and has lived in Germany since 2005.

He studied psychology at the University of Saarland. Since 2014 he has been working at the Migrantenberatungsstelle in Saarbrücken. His first play "Ausgangsperre" was created in 2014 within the framework of the nationwide competition "In the future II" at the Westphalian Landestheater. This piece was premiered in June 2016 in the Theater im Viertel in Saarbrücken and was also performed in September 2016 in überzwerg.
Spendenkonto/Donation Account:
DRK-Landesverband Saarland
IBAN: DE11 5905 0000 0004 3430 00
SALADE55XX
"Musaab"



Am 7. Juni dieses Jahres wurde der Rot-Kreuz-Mitarbeiter Musaab Al-Tuwaijari getötet.
Im Gedenken an ihn und zur Unterstützung seiner Familie spielen wir am Sonntag, den 3. September unser Stück FLUCHTWEGE.
Wir erheben keinen Eintritt und bitten stattdessen um Spenden.
Musaab Sadeq Khaleel Al-Tuwaijari wurde 1987 in Baquba (Irak) geboren und lebte seit 2005 in Deutschland.
Er studierte Psychologie an der Universität des Saarlandes. Seit 2014 arbeitete er in der Migrantenberatungsstelle in Saarbrücken. Sein erstes Theaterstück "Ausgangsperre" entstand 2014 im Rahmen des bundesweiten Wettbewerbs
»In Zukunft II« am Westfälischen Landestheater. Dieses Stück feierte Premiere im Juni 2016 im Theater im Viertel in Saarbrücken in der Regie von Johannes Tröger und wurde im September 2016 auch im überzwerg aufgeführt.
FLUCHTWEGE [Ab 10]
Von Nick Wood
Regie: Frank Engelhardt
Es spielen: Nicolas Bertholet, Eva Coenen
Termin: Sonntag, 3. September 2017, 15:00 Uhr
Ort: überzwerg – Theater am Kästnerplatz, Erich-Kästner-Platz 1, 66119 Saarbrücken
Reservierungen bitte unter Telefon +49 (0) 681 958283-0
SPENDEN STATT EINTRITT!
ZUM INHALT
Riva und ihr Bruder Andrea sind aus ihrem Heimatland geflohen. Dort herrschen Unterdrückung und Krieg. Ihr Vater wurde vor ihren Augen getötet. Zusammen mit ihrer Mutter sind sie nun in Deutschland und beantragen Asyl.
Hier ist erst mal alles fremd. Nichts ist da, woran sich die beiden festhalten können, außer an ihren Spielzeugen von früher: Riva trägt immer eine Puppe bei sich, Andrea seinen Fußball.
Rückblickend erzählen sie von ihrer Sehnsucht nach Zuhause, von ihren Träumen und wie sie gelernt haben, mit der Trauer um ihren Vater umzugehen. Es ist auch nicht leicht, in der Fremde Freundschaften zu schließen
und die neue Sprache zu lernen. So stehen sie an einem Neuanfang, dem sie mutig, neugierig und ein bisschen ängstlich entgegensehen.
Das temporeiche Stück nutzt den Wechsel von Darstellung im Spiel und Erzählung sehr geschickt und ermöglicht den Schauspielern in fließenden Übergängen den Wechsel in zahlreiche Rollen.
PRESSE-ECHO
"Ein umgelegter Schal, Mimik und Sprache leicht variiert: perfekte Figurenwechsel. Unglaublich, wieviele verschiedene Charaktere sie überzeugend verkörpern. Vor allem das Schicksal des Geschwisterpaars geht nahe. Berührend lassen Coenen und Bertholet sie zwischen Furcht, Mut und Hoffnung schwanken. (...) "Fluchtwege", feinfühlig inszeniert, lehrt Menschlichkeit, ohne pathetisch zu sein."   (SAARBRÜCKER ZEITUNG, Ruth Rousselange)

IS THIS ANYWAY TO TREAT AN ACTOR?

I was invited to Germany by THEATER ERLANGEN to see their production of A Girl With A Book and to take part in a post show discussion.  They were terrific hosts and I had a great time.  However while I was waiting to check in at the airport a friend of the actor Anika Herbst - it's a one person play came to find me because she wanted to tell me what had been going on with my play.  At first I was embarrassed as thought my irritation at the way they'd changed the text - they always do that in Germany - had been too obvious, and she was there to offer an explanation for the rewrites but that wasn't the case at all.  What she told me means that I can't not write this post even if it means offending my genourous hosts at THEATER ERLANGEN. In Germany actors are either 'guests' with a company who are theer to play specific roles or they are permanent company members.  Most theatres have a different production on each nigh so an actor ahs to carry several roles in their head and they may be considerable gaps between performances of any particular play.  Anika Herbst who took the role in my one person play A Girl With A Book had been with the company for four years. She trained at one of the top drama schools in Berlin. She has two children, and the birth of her second child put back plans for the production of AGWAB.  She worked right up to the end of her pregnancy and then took maternity leave.  When she returned from maternity leave and start to reharse AGWAB and take up her other roles she was told she was sacked. In Germany, unless there's an obvious reason like dishonesty, it is possible to sack an actor for 'artistic reasons', a phrase for which no-one has found a deffinition.  It appears, according to Anika's friend that her major difference with management was to ask if they could rehearse AGWAB within scheduled hours, and to suggest to overworked techies that working 12/14 hour days wasn't good for them or the theatre and thay should request that their hours be respected.  That might make her sound like a trouble maker. I don't think that's the case. During the time I was there she never mentioned her situation once, she was professional, cheerful, stimulating and enthusiastic in the post show discussion and at the mal that folllowed. When I met her the next morning in the rain on her way to take the play in a school she was exactly the same. It was her friend who thought I should know what she was going through, and that on the day I arrived for the performance she had been told that her role in AGWAB was to be taken away from her which is against all precident. In Germany if you leave a company for whatever reason it is expected that you will continue playing the roles you have created until you find other employment.  All her roles have been removed, her directors have been told they must rehearse another actor even though they don't wish to as they are more than happy with her work, and last week she gave her last performance. So a mother of two, in my judgement, a fine actress, and a professional company member has been sacked for 'artistic reasons'.  She has the backing of her union, recieved many endorsemenst form fellow professionals who are baffled by the decision, and her case will come to court I believe in October.  I'm sorry THEATER ERLANGEN but while I'm delighted you invited me over, proud that you decided there was enough in my play to interest you and your audience, and grateful for your genourous hospitality, I've got to play the ungrateful guest and say I believe your management has treated Anika Herbst appallingly. Below is a statement I've written in case it might help her in her fight.   If you belive this to be unjust, please share the link - she needs the widest possible support.   ANIKA HERBST. I met Anika before her performance in my one person play A Girl With A Book.  We talked afterwards over a meal with others from the company, and I saw again, briefly, in the morning as she was waiting in the rain to take AGWAB out to a school.  That’s how long we were in each other’s company.  No time at all.  Long enough to assess the quality of an actor?  I would argue it is. Her professionalism and integrity?   Let’s start with that.  On the day I met her I knew nothing of her circumstance with the company.  I didn’t know she’d just been told that her role in AGWAB was going to be taken away from her.  I didn’t know she’d been sacked.  She didn’t tell me and there was nothing in her demeanour to give me a clue that anything was wrong.  I learned about that when a friend of hers came and talked to me as I was waiting in the airport because she wanted me know what her friend was going through.  There was a discussion after the performance and she talked passionately about the play, about the significance of Malala for young women everywhere, was enthusiastically supportive of colleagues involved in the production.  Whatever she might have been feeling inside the only thing she allowed me and the audience to see was a committed, talented actor at the top of her game.  Her qualities as an actor?   Okay, so it was only one performance, however it was in a play I’d written, in a role I have performed myself, that’s not a problem for me but I mention it to underline that I do know the play pretty well.  And then there’s the German compulsion to change a writer’s original text without even asking - okay that’s a gripe from an English writer who once saw a play he’d written for two characters performed in Germany with three. So I’m watching my play where the central character is now an actor not a writer, where there are several moments where my text has been changed/cut/rewritten/added to etc etc and in my opinion not for the better, though I suppose I would say that.  I’m thrilled to have been invited, thrilled that a company in another country can find something in my work that resonates with them, but, if I’m honest, given all of the caveats above, inside I’m thinking  - just for once, why can’t someone do my stuff the way it’s been written?  Within five minutes I’d forgotten I was supposed to be carping about all the ways they were going to mess with my text and was concentrating on Anika’s performance.  Her energy, vitality, her intelligence, her awareness, the way she could change direction in an instant, her stillness, her commitment, her clarity, her honesty, the clear definition in her character work, her contact with the audience, I thought she was terrific.  I didn’t for one moment think that I was watching an actor who’d been sacked for ‘artistic reasons’ whatever that might mean. It’s only my opinion but I have to say why any company would want to sack such a professional, committed,  talented actor is beyond me.

My GP has been branded as 'inadequate' and it's wrong, so wrong.#nhsunderattack

My GP in Nottingham, Dr Mark Stevens, has been branded as ‘inadequate’ and it’s not right. It’s more that, it’s viciously wrong.  It has nothing to with his qualities as a GP or the professionalism of his staff. The hidden agenda is obvious. His is a one man practice, it’s not seen cost effective. Try telling his patients they don’t get value for money.  The bean counters want him to enlarge his practice and they’ve been pushing and pushing and pushing.  What makes me so angry is that they can drift in for two days in March, and on little or no concrete evidence label a caring, devoted, doctor as inadequate.

I have read the CQC report

http://www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/new_reports/AAAC0872.pdf

and my first response is anger that Dr Stevens should be maligned by such a shoddy, document. My second is to wonder why anyone would want to be GP when their clinical excellence and compassion is ignored and they and their staff are criticised for being overwhelmed with regulations, directives, and paper work.

We have been patients of Dr Stevens for over twenty years. You don't have to be a medical expert to recognise when you're lucky enough to be registered with a doctor who gives you confidence, inspires trust, is caring and who is willing to put himself out for his patients. None of which is reflected in the report the subtext of which is 'we told you to get a partner and you haven't'.

I don't care if the waste bin in the practice nurse's room has not been emptied. I don't care if someone hasn't remembered to sign a cover sheet to say they've read the latest directive on washing their hands. I don't care that a computer behind the glass was once observed to be at a slight angle so that a patient leaning through might have been able to read what was on the screen. I care that when I need help, it's given. I care that when I need someone to listen to my concerns and explain what's going on, that's what I find.

Read the report and you won’t find one concrete piece of evidence that the service is unsafe (sic), that anyone has come to harm, that any infection has been passed on.  In fact you might be forgiven for thinking that someone went in a brief to find fault wherever and however they could. But that couldn’t possibly be the case.

I hope that should those who dropped into his practice for a couple of days, talked to a handful of patients, and produced a report that does not reflect the experience of those of us lucky enough to be on his register, if they should fall ill and need a doctor find one half as good as Dr Stevens and then they might realise that there is more to practicing medicine than ticking boxes.

A good man has been badly damaged.  Make no mistake the NHS is under attack.

On the road with Malala - A Girl With A Book - the last night of the tour.

It’s cold as I walk into Keswick.  I cut down from the theatre across the car park. A man with a dog nods to me as we pass.  The streets are emptying, it’s getting dark, the snow I drove through to get here surrounds the town in a white band about three hundred feet up the fell son all sides. The get in is finished. The lighting cues have been sorted.  My clothes are hanging up in the dressing room.  It’s a five past five on Monday, 2^nd March 2015. 

I need a pasta salad, a bottle of water, and a couple of bananas to see me through till I eat when we come down.  I’ve been touring the play I wrote A Girl With A Book off and on for the last eighteen months. Tonight in the Studio at Theatre by the Lake will be the twenty ninth performance.  The last one of the spring tour.  Possibly the last one ever. 

I find what I’m looking for in the SPAR at the end of the High Street.  Time to kill. I wander back slowly.  In the dressing room it’s almost too hot.  I eat the pasta salad and one of the bananas. Have a drink of water. Change into the jeans and the shoes I’ll be wearing. Six o’clock.  

I go back to the studio and start what has become a nightly ritual. First I run the show in my head, as fast as I can sometimes mumbling the words out loud, making all the moves, getting familiar with the space and sightlines. Reassuring myself that I know it so well that no matter what happens in the fifty five minutes I’ll be on stage nothing will throw me.  It occurs to me that I probably do know it backwards.

Halfway through I’m interrupted.   Rachel’s had to change one of the lanterns since they rigged for the show. Can I check it’s okay?  It’s fine. I carry on from where I left off.  As I work my way towards the end of the play the words tumble out almost without meaning. But they come out in the right order and none of them are missing. 

After I’ve finished I check the position of everything on the set. Map, notes, laptop, pencils, paper clips, polystyrene head, scarf, chairs, desk. I sit behind the desk. Lower the lid of laptop a fraction. Put it back where it was. I sit back against the front of the desk. It wobbles slightly. I adjust the legs. It’s fine.

I walk round the stage. Long strides. Across the front. Across the back. Corner to corner.  Swinging my arms. Just like I do before every performance. I start humming.  I let a full sound come out at the end of each hum and go up and down the scale. I stop. Start to stretch. Stretch the tendons in both legs.  Don’t want cramp.  Stretch high. Breathing in. Let the breath out and relax until I touch my toes. After several attempts.  I pay special attention to my back.  There’s an old injury there and I know if I tense up there’s always the chance it could go into spasm. It hasn’t happened in a while but it might. 

I walk round again. This time I’m thinking about my voice. Fifty five minutes is a long time. I don’t want my voice to give out, croak, become inaudible or lose its range.  Consonants first. Then the vowels. Tongue twisters.

What a to do to die today at a minute or two to two

A most particular thing to say and harder still to do.

Breathe. Relax.  One last check of the props. It’s a twenty to seven. Fifteen minutes to the half. Back to the dressing room for the first of many trips to the loo. No.  I’ve left the mug on the set.  Go back and get it. In the dressing room I half fill the mug with water. I change my shirt, whip some deodorant around, and put on the glasses I’ll be wearing, and get everything ready for a quick getaway. After squeezing out another pee it’s ten to seven.  I have to go back to the studio for another one last check that I know is completely unnecessary.  In the dressing room I hear – ‘Mr Wood, this is your half hour call for A Girl With A Book in the Studio. Your half hour call.’

I prop the door open. It is too hot. Much too hot. I swill some water round my mouth and spit it out. Is my throat going to dry?  No.  I clean my teeth.  Now that we’ve got to the half I don’t feel nervous. There’s an excellent house.  I’ve got a job to do.  I want to get on with it. I go outside and stand in the corridor chatting to the techies. Dylan Moran is on in the main house. He nods as he passes us.  Twenty past seven. In five minutes Hugh will come to lead me up through the offices to the entrance to the studio and then into the space behind the curtain stage right from where I’ll make my entrance. I go back into the dressing room and close the door.

I sit in front of the mirror and start to build up, out loud, the frustration my character feels about his difficulty in coming to terms with how his research into the shooting of Malala has revealed attitudes in himself that make him uncomfortable, but despite that he won’t give in, he will make the play he wants to write work.  I ruffle my hair. Polish my glasses. Have another one last pee.  I like the feeling that all over the country at this moment there are people like me in dressing rooms, or in wings, waiting.  I pick up the mug and go back outside. I’m going to do this.  I’m ready.

Only the audience aren’t. We’re holding for five minutes.  There’s a crush of people trying to get into both shows and we can’t go upon time.  More chat.  At half past seven Hugh and I walk through the back corridors to the studio.  I’m shown through to the edge of the stage. Hugh squeezes my shoulder ‘Have a good one’. I’m on my own.

The house lights go down. The pre - set comes up to full. I give it a beat then leading with my upstage foot I walk out onto the stage.

I look with disgust at the desk and the prospect of work. I don’t want to spend the day writing. I want to be outside. I take a sip from my coffee mug and walk downstage right. I look out the window. I turn and look back at the desk and become aware that I can hear a noise.  It’s conversation. It’s not from my audience.  There’s a speaker or an intercom on and we can all hear the audience in the main hose. If it isn’t switched off soon we’ll all hear ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, will you please welcome, Dylan Moran!’  I can’t start yet. I pick up a book and flick through the chapter headings. I look at the notes I’ve made. Scribble something in my notebook.  Someone will turn it off. I can see people getting restless, looking for the source of the sound. If we do hear the announcement or it doesn’t go off in ten seconds tops, I’ll stop, make a joke of it and suggest that if it’s okay with them we start again from the top.

The sound disappears. I sit at the desk.  Start up the laptop. Begin playing spider solitaire. Lose and say the first word in the play, ‘Bugger’ and we’re off.

Fifty five minutes later practically to the second I quieten the applause and tell the audience that there will be a short Q and A in about five minutes. Time for us all to get a drink, and for them to think of some questions. I sprint back to the dressing room where I change back into my own clothes, have drink of water and wolf down the second banana.

Back in the studio a gratifyingly large number of people have elected to stay. The Q and A sessions have worked well. Sometimes it feels as if I’m chairing an episode of Question Time. And the people I’ve met.  An elderly lady in Millom who hiked the Swat Valley with Ramblers’ Association in the eighties –‘and they weren’t that keen on women even then I might tell but it never stopped us.’  A gentleman who used to live in Swat who when he was a young man used to play golf with the erstwhile Prince of Swat who thanked me for showing people how beautiful it is.  A woman who was the daughter and the wife to Pakistani army men who said that the picture I had painted about the difficulties children had in getting an education was from her experience entirely accurate.  And, very special this, all the friends and ex students now spread all over the country who spotted my name on the poster and came along to say hello. Tonight I’m almost superfluous as they conduct a debate amongst themselves about the insidious nature of racism in this country and how it is encouraged by sections of the media.  Afterwards I meet the lady from the Ambleside Tourist Office who supported me as I resisted attempts to get me to pay a ridiculous and unfair parking fine imposed on my last visit, sell and sign good number of play texts, and keep my promise to Rachel and Hugh to get out of the studio in ten minutes flat.

I load my roller case, carpet, three chairs and the desk into the back of my car and head for Carlisle where I’ll be spending the night with friends.  It’s bitterly cold. I drive carefully, wary of ice. I think about the performance. Pleased that if it is to be the last one I do it was word perfect.  What have I learned?  It’s a long time since I acted for a living and I can still hold an audience. So that’s good for my confidence.   Doing a one man play is very lonely and very scary. But doing a one man play is also enormous fun.  There are three productions scheduled for Germany – as I write there are a total of seven either running or about to open - so that means if someone else wants to do it the writing must be okay. It's taken along time for me to acknowledge any success I might have had as anything but blind, undeserving luck, but tonight I feel 'I've done good work.

 

Steve and Ray are still up when I get back. They grin at me, ask me how it went. They can see how I feel, they're used to it, their daughter is an actor.  They know I’m not ready for bed, too much adrenalin. 

‘You look like you might need a little something to help you sleep’, says Steve, ‘I didn’t get this specially for you, it was a present from a friend, but when I knew you were coming I thought I’d keep it till you got here.’ 

He produces a bottle of Irish Malt and pours me a glass. He turns the bottle round so I can see the name on the label – Writers’ Tears. It’s been an excellent night.  We drink.

‘Cheers, mate.’