THE WIDOW

A Reading of a Play by Amir Al-Azraki

8 pm, Thursday, June 25, 2015

Midway Studios
15 Channel Center Street
Fort Point, Boston

FREE

presented by

Fort Point Theatre Channel
The Joiner Institute for the Study of War and Social Consequences
The Odysseus Project
The Center for Arabic Culture

Featuring

Nick Arditti
Kippy Goldfarb
Sally Nutt
Bari Robinson
Kria Sakakeeny
Mason Sand
Michael Dwan Singh

About The Widow

Fort Point Theatre Channel is pleased to present the first U.S. reading of Amir al-Azraki’s The Widow. The play had its world premiere last year as part of the SummerWorks festival in Toronto, Canada.

The Widow addresses an essential issue: the subjugation of widows in Iraq. Instead of an harmonious society, Iraq is replete with horror stories about violations against widows and divorced women. Al-Azraki depicts the fragile social construct that widowhood has become in this context by revealing the hypocrisy of the so called “Islamic” societies where women are severely victimized by patriarchal ideas, traditional norms, and religious prejudices.

Nour, a widow from the 2003 Iraq War, initiates an affair with an outspoken young teacher, Samir. After receiving threats from a religious militia group, Samir flees Iraq, leaving Nour to deal with all of the consequences. As a jobless refugee in Canada, Samir returns to Nour in Iraq despite his family’s warnings.

Amir Al-Azraki, born in Basra and now living in Toronto, received a BA from the University of Basra, a MA from Baghdad University, and a PhD in theatre studies from York University, Toronto. During the first years of the Iraq War, al-Azraki, in addition to teaching English drama at the University of Basra, worked as a fixer and translator for such international news outlets as The New York Times and The Dallas Morning News, later working for Al Mirbad TV and Radio run by the BBC World Service Trust. He developed a collaboration of the University of Basra, the Central School of Speech and Drama, and the University of London on "Transforming the Learning Environment Through Forum Theatre: Developing a Basra University Model." Among his plays are Stuck, Notorious Women, Lysistrata in Iraq, Home Woes, and Judgement Day. Previously, Fort Point Theatre Channel, the Odysseus Project, and the Joiner Institute have presented readings of several of his plays, as well as a workshop production of The Land, by Jessica Litwak, with al-Azraki.