Kay Adshead

Image by Kay Adshead

The Singing Stones

Image by Arcola Theatre

It’s really three plays, about women and the Arab Spring – “and I don’t mean women in the Arab revolution but how the Arab revolution has impacted on women everywhere”.

It takes in Tahrir Square, the torture of a young puppeteer in Syria, movements across the Syrian-Turkish border, Tunisia on the eve of a seismic political change, Colonel Gadaafi at the end of a drainpipe in Libya, Kurdish fighters, and Camberwell, where a group of women are making a play about women and the Arab revolution.

There are only nine actors (including a Syrian, a Nigerian, a Sikh, a British Pakistani, a Scot and a pregnant woman) in the Arcola Theatre production, but Adshead is aiming for “a great big epic piece of theatre.

“I like big pieces and canvases,” she says, “and I hope it’s funny – because I’ve been inspired by Masasit Mati [a Syrian puppetry series that mocks President Assad].

“Laughter stops people being paralysed and is a way of provoking thought and debate,” she adds.  “I’m a Mancunian and I find life funny the way Mancunians do.”

Adshead is co-founder of theatre production company Mama Quilla, which spotlights human rights abuses from a female perspective. It also seeks to combat the waste of resources and talent in female theatre practitioners over the age of 40.

She says the Arcola production rose from a project about the spate of global protests:

“It was about the time of student protests, and that moved to the London summer, aka the English riots, and about that time it was the Arab Spring.”

So “the Arab Spring came on the project”, she recalls, and women were participating. But  it became clear that the story of women and the Arab Spring was very briefly celebrated, quickly denied and shortly afterwards derided – as though they hadn’t been really important.

“And a lot of the stories of the women who were taken away and tortured and killed have vanished. So I wanted to do a piece about women and the Arab revolution.”

She thinks audiences will be surprised that the piece is humorous piece: “I want people not to be afraid,  because we living in terrible times. We mustn’t be paralysed by fear, everybody needs to be part of a joint experience and laugh a bit at the same time.”

Her aim? “I just want every to come and see thrilling theatre, that’s provocative and hope people will feel part of a real visceral experience, rather than sitting back and feeling they are being shown something.”

·        The Singing Stones is at The Arcola, 24 Ashwin  Street, E8, until 28 February. Info: 7503 1646

+ http://www.mamaquilla.org/