“Today I Live”: A Play In Progress
"Today I Live" explores the trauma of displacement and the struggle of an artist grappling with her past. In a flat in London, a Persian woman isolates herself from her husband and children. In the same flat in 1821, an Irish mapmaker’s peace is disturbed when his estranged son discovers his whereabouts. Influencing each other through time and space, the Irish Mapmaker and the Persian Artist awaken each other’s desires and nightmares.
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This play holds at its heart, modern themes of the alienation and communion. Exploring unlikely bonds between immigrants from different countries, migration and trauma emerge as integral to human experience. Audiences are given the opportunity to resonate with the characters of Niaz and Farhad, an Iranian couple struggling to negotiate their way through their marriage.
The play draws from Ferdowsi's epic poem "Shahnameh" as well as legends of the Irish hero Cúchulainn. The play is primarily in English with some Farsi and Irish Gaelic.
“Today I Live” has been performed in London, in collaboration with The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in the form of rehearsed readings before a public audience.
Upcoming:
Susan-Jane Harrison has been awarded the Margrit Modavi Fellowship 2012. This fellowship will fund a week long exploratory workshop of the play in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2012. Playwright Susan-Jane Harrison will explore the role of Niaz in this iteration. The process will be directed and facilitated by Director Jessa Brie Berkner.
Sculptor Vivien Whitaker on “Today I Live”
“The play was very moving and spoke to me of the dilemma of every creative person – how to be in the world yet have the time to let your creativity blossom. Immediately after seeing the play I started a major new stone sculpture entitled ‘Divided Self’ which explores this tension in three dimensions.
A collector of my sculpture was astonished when she took one of my alabaster sculptures to her home – she said it had presence and the sculpture spoke to her. Similar resonances are experienced in this play as a strong sense of place links the open and sensitive artist to memories trapped in the old stones.
I remember the play vividly and continue to muse on its connections and implications.”