Doing the show, week 2

Who is considered the outsider?

Merseult? The women? One is beaten up. Her brother is murdered. The violators don’t learn. We love lovable men who make mistakes. Another woman is loved but never knows this. The mother is dead. Did she know how much of an influence she was on her son? Is Robot Woman as beautiful as Merseult? Salamano didn’t like his wife but he missed her. Do we remember the women at the end?

– the Arab. All the Arabs. Not allowed into the courtroom? Not present in our minds. Hardly speaking. Who gets to represent them and what responsibilities do we have in how we present them. Why is the Arab woman with the abusive Catholic man. I’m so glad Ben Okri made the short film, The Insider, and also had “the Arab” reappear at very specific moments.

– The Parisians and the French people in Algiers. The Perezes, the Cardonas. What are they doing there?

– why does Marie want to marry him? Is he present, simple in his immediacy. Why does she, in the production, break up with him. Has she been alone the whole time?

– who isn’t in the building? Who is outside? I know people who find it unfeasible to enter the space due to The Print Room protest last year. Who doesn’t it actively welcome, are there ways in which it isn’t it a safe space, physically or emotionally? Who gets access to safety and comfort, entertainment and thought?

Who makes the moves, who gets invited where, who squats and murmurs, and who shouts intimacies about themselves, displaying, displaying what?