Hussein Al-Khalidi is playing for Madam Fortuna this season 'EVERYTHING is safe here' and regularly repeats 'I am Hussein, who are you'. In spring 2020 he was supposed to play that second performance in the Red Star Line Museum, but corona threw a spanner in the works. Following that show, we interviewed Hussein. Fortunately, he can be back on stage again soon. You can read his story here.
Hussein, how did you become interested in art?
I initially chose theater because it could give me a future. I grew up in Iraq in the 1990s under Saddam Hussein. During that period you had to go to the army at the age of eighteen. As a young man you had little perspective. I didn't want to go to the army. It meant being far away from your own city and family, eating poorly, participating in the system. If you went to study to become a doctor or engineer, you knew that you had no professional future afterwards. The country was completely isolated, there was no prospect of good work.
In that sense, theater also saved my life.
My sister pushed me towards theater: that meant that I would study for 9 years, and would therefore be a bit older and more mature by the time I had to go to the army: first 5 years of conservatory and then another 4 years of university. I had been interested in film and singing for some time. But I don't have a good singing voice. This choice of study mainly bought me time, and my interest gradually grew.
In that sense, theater also saved my life, but my interest in art and theater arose from a pragmatic choice. People from the theater world here don't always like to hear that, but that is also part of my story.
Why do you choose monologues?
At the request of Mestizo Arts Platform, Luk Nys and I started working on a performance. We chose the monologue together because it is a strong way to tell my story. I tell Hussein's story, but I am also Hussein. That makes the monologue the ideal form of play.
I've seen bad things, but it's okay now, it will never be worse than before.
You know, I've been through a lot, and sometimes I get comments that I laugh a lot when I tell my story. People wonder how that is possible. But when you have been through a lot, sometimes you choose at a certain moment which plan you make, whether or not you will get stuck in the problems. People who are not experiencing such bad things often postpone their plans. I've seen bad things, but it's okay now, it will never be worse than before. I accept what I went through, and you can feel that in my monologue.
I was immediately enthusiastic about the game format, but I didn't find it easy. I have always played in a group before. This is the first time I'm playing a monologue, but because I don't play in my own language it's difficult. Fortunately, Luk helped me: We talked a lot about my situation in Iraq and here, and wrote the text together.
Is there a specific reason why you make the audience part of the performance?
There is a very good reason for this: Luk and I strongly believe that theater is a way to create encounters. As artists we need to make more contact with the audience. The major theme of art and theater is encounter.
So not only Hussein's story is central, but also the stories of the people in the audience. People are afraid of strangers and there is little or no encounter – real contact – between people. People are afraid of what they have no contact with: unknown is unloved.
So we try to bring people on stage and tell their stories. That is why the performance is not called 'I am Hussein', but: 'I am Hussein, who are you?'. That meeting is what I do it for.
If you work so interactively, how do you ensure that you control the show? What if someone wants to 'steal' the show?
So far that has not happened. Firstly, people choose whether they come on stage, and we give them the necessary space to do so. We work with specific questions, so in that way we provide some guidance. But above all: we only invite people at the end of the performance. At that moment I had already told my whole story, and you notice that people react very openly to it. They become really open themselves. The request to come on stage is so inviting; people simply respond openly, without the tendency to copy the performance. That is very authentic.
Not a performance goes by without people asking about my children afterwards.
I often receive additional questions from the audience after the performance. Not a performance goes by without people asking about my children afterwards. But I understand that: they are concerned. So I'll just continue the conversation with them. I have no problems talking about it, I have no regrets about what happened. And that is also part of the encounter.
How has art and theater changed your life? And how do you make a difference with art?
There are so many types of art and theater... You can have fun with that, but real art is more than fun: you also get content. Theater can be very powerful in changing society: it can make people think about situations and difficult aspects of society.
Through the encounter within art and theater we make a difference in how people view refugees.
If, as an Iraqi creator, you come from a war zone and you try to make a performance about the war, you can choose to make that theme very strong. But for me that is not the right way – I believe more that we can tell the hard story in a light way, with a certain lightness. I think that's much stronger. My monologue is also about the story of a dictatorship, but I tell it in a normal way. I often hear that it is so strong because it is presented without heavy emotions. If you make it too heavy and dark, people will turn away from your story. People sympathize better with the lighter way, the effect is stronger and you get more encounters.
And then we are back to the beginning: unknown is unloved. Through the encounter within art and theater we make a difference in how people view refugees.
You also worked as a director in Iraq. Is there a big difference in the working environment compared to Belgium?
There is certainly a big difference. There is a completely different way of working in Iraq compared to Belgium. I have already worked with various organizations here. Here the actor can do more of what he can, you get fewer instructions. Here they think less that the actor is a puppet.
In Iraq, the actor is instructed on every move he has to do by the director – extremely detailed instructions – only the emotion comes from the actor. I find that easier in a way as an actor, because you know much better what to do. Especially in amateur theatre, I think people sometimes need more instructions. But the director should not be a dictator, in Iraq that is sometimes the case (laughs).
As a refugee it was very difficult to get back on the podium in Belgium. I come from a different kind of society, with a different kind of theater. I experience two bottlenecks: language, in the literal sense of the word. But also figuratively: how can I understand the Western European audience and go along with them? How can I make them understand my story? How do I get close to them? That's difficult to understand. But with this performance we succeed.