Irish- Palestinian playwright Hannah Khalil told David Hennessy about her current play about food, home and escape from a bad relationship and Iran’s oppressive regime, growing up between Dubai and Kilkenny and her new play inspired by the Galtymore.
After a sellout Edinburgh run, My English Persian Kitchen by Hannah Khalil is currently showing at Soho Theatre.
It is based on a story by food writer Atoosa Sepehr.
In December 2007, Atoosa Sepehr arrived in the UK from Iran. She was 30 years old, fleeing a disastrous marriage and her escape was an overnight flit. She’d packed in under an hour, was driven to Tehran at speed by her mother, bought a ticket in cash and raced through departures. In Iran, divorce wasn’t easy without a husband’s agreement, which Sepehr knew her husband would never give. He also holds the power to ban his wife from leaving the country.
Alone in London and still reeling from fleeing a traumatic personal situation in Iran, Atoosa began to crave home cooking.
But she had never learned to cook.
She would try to learn with tips from relatives on the other side of the world, often sharing with neighbours who noticed the delicious aromas wafting out of her kitchen.
The actress Isabella Nefar tells her story of survival as she cooks traditional Ash Reshteh, a Persian noodle soup.
Theatre is usually enjoyed with eyes and ears but this one treats the nostrils as well as the fragrances of the cooking fill the auditorium.
Without warning the scenario flicks to the past with the kitchen bench setting being transformed into an airport, a taxi, a bedroom.
The production concludes with a shared meal with audiences invited to gather around the kitchen bench to sample the Ash Reshteh.
Playwright Hannah Khalil was born to Palestinian father and Irish mother.
Her plays include A Museum in Baghdad which marked the first play by a woman of Arab heritage on a main stage at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the critically acclaimed Scenes from 68 Years.
Where did the idea for My English Persian Kitchen first come from? Were you moved by Atoosa’s story and look to adapt it?
“No, it came to me.
“I got a message from David Luff who’s the head of theatre at Soho Theatre.
“He’d read a story which was about Atoosa and this hugely successful cookbook that she’d written (From a Persian Kitchen).
“He sent me a message and said, ‘Would you be interested in talking about maybe doing a play around this story?’
“This was in lockdown and my initial reaction was, ‘But why me? I don’t know anything about Iran. Iran is totally out of my sphere of knowledge’.
“So we had the meeting and I realised through the chat that the play wouldn’t be about Iran because it’s about her coming here and what it’s like to come from Iran and start again in London and how you make a community, that is something that I can understand because I grew up in the Middle East. Then when my parents divorced, my mum came back to London and she had to start again from nothing.
“I was like, ‘Oh, I know that story’.
“And Atoosa and I got on really well immediately, we both really bonded over food.
“It didn’t occur to me at the time but now I sort of realise she can’t go back to Iran, it’s very difficult for me to go to Palestine and I have definitely connected with that bit of my culture through food.
“My dad never really talked to me about politics or anything like that, but he always cooked Palestinian food. Then I learned how to cook Palestinian food and it’s a real way of sharing the culture.
“That’s exactly what Atoosa did.
“We had this love of food and sharing that in common.
“She had written this amazing cookbook which is absolutely stunning and it has so many gorgeous recipes.
“So from the beginning, I said there has to be cooking in the show. It’s imperative.
“And the producer at the time was like, ‘Yeah, great idea’.
“I think he thought it would probably never happen, ‘It will be fine’.
“And then he was like, ‘Oh sh*t, this is gonna be quite difficult logistically’.
“I have seen shows in the past where there’s cooking in them but you never get to eat it and that is a crime as far as I’m concerned.
“If you’re sat there smelling gorgeous food and you think, ‘What? You’re not going to give me any?’
“We did it in Edinburgh.
“I’d be in the bar and people would come out of the other space and be like, ‘Oh, what’s that? That smells nice. I didn’t know they were serving food in the bar’.
“’No, they’re not. It’s that show downstairs’.
“The smells are incredible.
“They often have it (Ash Reshteh) in Iran for New Year and apparently the noodles represent the paths of your life which is really sort of appropriate to the story because of the journey that she was on and how lucky she was to get out when she did.
“It started with lots of interviews with Atoosa.
“She and I chatted for hours and hours and hours. She told me everything about her story and then I started to pare it back a bit and start reimagining it.
“It’s based on her story but it’s fictionalised.
“I just really think it is a play that speaks to anyone who is an immigrant.
“This woman tweeted about the show.
“She said, ‘I don’t know Iran. I’ve never been to Iran but watching this show made me feel homesick’.
“I think it’s that sort of universal experience of people who have one foot somewhere else but are here.”
What have the reactions been of anyone from a Persian background?
“The person I’ve been most scared about, of course, is Atoosa, but she’s been involved in every aspect. She’s read every draft of the play. She was in rehearsals.
“But her parents came to see the show.
“They came from Iran and I was quite scared, ‘God, what will they think of it?’
“But they were gorgeous and they loved it.
“I think they found it quite moving.
“We’ve had really good, strong reactions from Iranian people who want to share their stories with Isabella.
“When Isabella, the actress, is sharing the food at the end, people often presume that it’s her story and that she’s Atoosa, because she’s such a brilliant actress and there’s something about the act of really cooking on stage, not faking it. The fact that she’s actually doing it, that makes everything feel real so you really believe that it’s her.
“There’s something about the gesture of the play and particularly the eating at the end that means that people talk to each other.
“Theatre at its best makes a new community every night with its audience.
“You’ve got a different group of people who come in and they form a little community that watch this play.
“This really takes it to the next level because it really encourages people to talk to one another, tell their own stories, share their own experiences and that’s been really moving to watch.
“It’s great. It makes for a very warm and conducive environment and Jesus, isn’t that just what we need now with everything?
“While the play was on in Edinburgh, we had these riots going on down here and I was like, ‘Yeah, we need a play to remind us about the good things about community and how we come together’.
“Even if we’re all different people with different ideas, different backgrounds, we can come together and kind of have a little community moment. It’s not all horror.”
People often ask you about your ethnic mix of Palestinian and Irish like it’s a strange mix but you’re quick to say it isn’t at all, you see so many parallels between the two..
“There’s so many historical parallels and actually there’s more of us than you’d think.
“I really love the fact that now there’s this real reclamation of Irish culture and Irish heritage as not being monocultural, there’s loads of us that are unusual mixes which is what happens when you have a country where people emigrate.
“I’m so proud of both of my cultures.
“I think it’s the best combination.”
You grew up in Dubai and spent many summers in Ireland, isn’t that right?
“That’s right. All my summers (were in Ireland).
“We had a cottage next to my granny’s farm in Kilkenny, a small village called Windgap.
“And they kick you out of school in Dubai in June because of the heat so in June, we would go to Ireland and mum would phone up the headmaster of the village school and we would go to the school there for the last three, four weeks of term.
“We were ‘the freaks’, and I would tell the most awful lies.
“They would be asking me, ‘Do you have a camel?’
“I’d say, ‘Yes, of course’.
“’And do you live in a tent?’
“’Oh, yeah, a big one though’.
“And they were all fascinated.
“I loved it and then we’d spend the summer bothering my uncle on the farm.
“I very much lived between those two places and it was normal for me.
“Other people would be like, ‘It’s so weird, those two different worlds’.
“No, it didn’t feel weird because I didn’t know anything else.”
You have always felt that middle eastern women, female characters from the Arab world have only represented as stereotypes..
“And every time I think it’s getting better I’ll see a TV show and go, ‘Oh no, not again’.
“It’s often very reductive which is why it’s important to have a plurality of stories, and stories being told by women.”
You were reluctant for a long time to write about your other culture because it’s a big responsibility, isn’t it?
“Yeah, it’s a bit like putting your head above the parapet writing about Palestine because you’ll never please everybody and people become very protective.
“The first play about Palestine was called Plan D and I remember the director saying to me, ‘People will feel very possessive about the way that you’re portraying Palestine because Palestine is a land of the imagination because it doesn’t exist on maps anymore, it’s been decimated because of the occupation.
“And so if it’s a land of the imagination, there’s real power in presenting it.
“Also, it’s a really contentious thing to do.
“We saw it also with all the Nationalistic Irish writers.
“The power of imagining something is dangerous because it can bring it into being.
“Writing about Palestine was and continues to be scary, but it’s incredibly fulfilling.
“It’s something I do enjoy doing and I do love writing about Ireland as well.
“Writing anything is a huge responsibility, particularly if you’re writing about a community because you want to try and represent them in the most faithful way possible.
“It’s a big responsibility but it’s one that I feel privileged to have been able to do.
“My big play about Palestine, Scenes from 68 Years. is still my most successful play.
“It’s been produced all over the world so there is an appetite for stories that are not stereotypical and not the usual.
“Long may that continue, particularly with things being the way that they are in Palestine at the moment.
“It’s really important to try and redress the negative way and the insidious way in which the news talks about Palestine and Palestinians.
“You sometimes have to look twice at a headline to realise the language that’s being used and what that insidiously suggests or does to the reader without people often even realising.
“Any opportunity to address the balance I try and take.”
It must be tough to watch what is going on at the moment..
“It’s horrendous.
“I have to be careful about how much I look online and how much I consume in that way.
“It’s difficult for me, but it’s much harder for the people who are there.
“I’m lucky that my family in the West Bank at the moment seem to be okay, but it’s scary because the situation is getting pretty explosive over there in the West Bank as well.
“I can only hope that at some point somebody in a position of power will do something to stop it.
“I can’t believe how long this particular bombardment has been going on.
“It’s very depressing, very hard.”
A solution may look a long way off now but once so did peace in Northern Ireland..
“Interesting you say that.
“On The Late Late Show Patrick Kielty made me cry.
“He said something like, ‘We’re thinking of the people of Gaza and Palestine at this time. We know that it seems like it will never end, and that it will take a miracle, but remember that in Northern Ireland we had our miracle, and you will have yours’.
“It was just so beautiful and heartfelt.
“We have to hold on to hope.”
Hannah has yet to have any of her work staged in Ireland but has written a play set in an Irish dance hall.
“I am now putting that play in front of anyone who will listen to me and trying to get it on.
“We’re in this moment in theatre where no one’s got any money.
“Theatres are having to pay back all their Covid loans.
“A lot of plays that are being done now are what would be considered safe bets by people like Tom Stoppard or William Shakespeare.
“They’re more anxious about what’s considered to be risky work.
“But I would challenge any theatre producer to look at My English Persian Kitchen.
“That might be considered risky but we sold out in Edinburgh.
“It’s not risky. Audiences want this work.
“If I put on a play about Irish immigrants to London in the 1950s and 60s set in a dance hall- Tell me that won’t sell out every night.
“It’s based on some of the stories my mum told me about when she first came here when she was 16.
“They lived for Saturday night to go to the Galty.
“When she came back- This is in the early 90s- The Galty was still open and I went with her a few times.
“The idea came about because she told me all these brilliant stories about the club and about the people.
“Then I was having some work done on the house and the guy who was doing it said to me, ‘I’ve got a great story for you….’
“And I thought, ‘Oh, geez’.
“Everyone’s got a great story for you when you’re a writer, you know?
“And he was like, ‘Have you ever heard of the Galtymore?’
“And I was like, ‘What are you talking about? Of course I’ve heard of the Galtymore. My mum was there every weekend’.
“And he was like, ‘My dad set it up’.
“And he told me the story of his dad and his uncle setting it up.
“He then started telling me all these amazing stories about the stuff that went on there and I was like, ‘Oh, that is actually a really good idea. That’s a great idea for a story’.
“Then I went and interviewed lots of different people.
“It’s just the stories: It’s nurses, you get glimpses into people’s lives and all those men who built this country.
“There is no monument to the Irish navvies who died building the roads.
“We’ve got one character called Steady who’s just at the bar all day long and all he says is, ‘I built the M1. I built the M1’.
“And he did, he did build the M1 and no one gives a shite.
“It’s a love letter to that generation and their courage because when they came here, it was really hard then to go back, particularly the men. They couldn’t go back because they were ashamed that they hadn’t made more money, made more of themselves and they ended up just drinking the money and pissing it up the wall, you know?”
My English Persian Kitchen is at Soho Theatre until 5 October.
For more information, click here.
For more information, click here.
