The Birmingham Repertory Theatre and National Theatre present
BY AYUB KHAN DIN
WED 3 – SAT 6 NOVEMBER 2021
EAST IS EAST CAST LIST
CREATIVE TEAM
Meenah Khan Amy-Leigh Hickman Doctor/Mr Shah Irvine Iqbal George Khan Tony Jayawardena Saleem Khan Adonis Jenieco Auntie Annie Rachel Lumberg Sajit Khan Noah Manzoor Maneer Khan Joeravar Sangha Tariq Khan Gurjeet Singh Ella Khan Sophie Stanton Abdul Khan Assad Zaman
Writer Ayub Khan Din Director Iqbal Khan Set, Projection & Lighting Designer Bretta Gerecke Costume Designer Susan Kulkarni Composer Felix Dubs Sound Designer Jon Nicholls Fight Director RC Annie Casting Director Stuart Burt CDG Associate Director Natasha Kathi-Chandra Associate Projection Designer Max White Voice Coach Abi Lumb Associate Costume Designer & Supervisor Suzanne Knight Makeup & Hair Designer JoJo Dutton
UNDERSTUDIES Hamzah Aftab Maneer, Saleem & Dr/Mr Shah Sara Faraj Meena & Sajit Emma Keele Ella & Annie Joeravar Sangha Abdul & Tariq
Production Manager Heather Doole Set Build Production Manager Sam Paterson Company Stage Manager Jo Alexander Deputy Stage Manager Ana Carter Assistant Stage Manager Myer Daniels Props Supervisor & Assistant Stage Manager Laura Stone 2
WINTER WELLBEING FESTIVAL 10 – 20 November 2021 A programme of talks, discussions and practical sessions for all ages, to support positive mental health, resilience and wellbeing. PROGRAMME INCLUDES SINGING FOR THE SOUL
MEDITATION WORKSHOP
FOOD AND MOOD HOW TO BUILD A HEALTHY BRAIN GOGA – SOLD OUT SLEEP MATTERS ZEN DEN KNIT AND NATTER
HUMAN DESIGN PACK UP YOUR TROUBLES (For 5 – 7 year olds)
PERFORMING POSTCARDS (For families)
Tickets from £5; some events are free but booking is essential Visit cft.org.uk/wellbeing for full details
SARFRAZ MANZOOR IN CONVERSATION WITH AYUB KHAN DIN AND IQBAL KHAN Journalist and author Sarfraz Manzoor talks to writer Ayub Khan Din and director Iqbal Khan SM: What does it mean for you to bring East Is East back to Birmingham? AKD: What is special to me is that it’s 25 years and it all started off in that studio in Birmingham. It was a life-changing experience for me because my life changed overnight. The way people perceived British Asians in general and in our business was completely turned on its head as well. Suddenly, we could laugh at ourselves. It felt as if a veil was lifted that suddenly we had permission to go on a further journey than what was normally perceived of us. SM: What prompted the restaging now? Is it the 25th anniversary? IK: Well, the 25th anniversary is important – it’s important to mark that. There are questions around identity that have never been as vocal and visible in all parts of the community. This isn’t just an Asian conversation. Everyone is having this conversation now: What’s our national identity? What tribes do we belong to? And this play is speaking to all of those things but with real detail. And the play, as opposed to the film, is a much more nuanced, darker journey to go on.
SM: How do you think time has treated the play? AKD: I think it’s still as fresh and relevant as when we first did it. Perhaps more so because the politics we have today have moved so fast and it seems like every moment of that movement has continued to inform the play and vice versa. I think the issues within the play are still saying that and are still resonating with young Asians today. I think that’s why it feels so fresh to me. IK: It was incredibly funny – dangerous – it walked a line that was really exciting to me. I felt our story was visible in a way that I hadn’t seen represented before on screen. Also I don’t think there is another play that has dealt as well and has spoken and crossed into the mainstream as well about a mixed race relationship between Pakistani and white – I can’t think of one. It does feel like (with this new production that) we’re really digging into darker waters in the play. There is a story about domestic abuse in the play. Is George a monster? Is his mind fractured? What is his psychosis? We’re much more able to enter the mind of George than I think we were before. He’s much less a figure of fun and there is something quite tragic about him. There’s also something about the strength of the women in the play. All of the women in the play – Annie, Ella and Meenah – are incredibly strong. Their gender presence in the play feels even more significant now than I remember it being 12 years ago. Ayub was writing with a freedom and confidence 25 years ago about these things and I think the world is now catching up.
SM: Do you think it would be as easy to write with such freedom now? AKD: The problem would be white liberal theatre practitioners stopping me from saying things. It’s weird. It’s as if things have come full circle. They couldn’t give a flying f*ck about putting Asian or brown faces on television or what was said about them. Now they’re so concerned about what we write about ourselves and what people write about us that they stop it. It’s the same people who wouldn’t allow us the platform are now being overprotective about the platform they’ve now given us. SM: Is there a greater talent pool than in the past? IK: I’m incredibly excited about the extraordinary range of talent that is coming through now in the younger generation of actors. They have had much more experience. They’re much more confident. So that talent pool has deepened and broadened and I think we have an exceptional company of young people. AKD: Now we’ve got British Asian film stars in Hollywood. In the mainstream soaps, we have regular Asian families involved. It’s when we’re seeing we’re mainstream that things move on. It’s those people in the mainstream, competing with the best. SM: When you watch it now what does it make you think? AKD: I can hear my voice investigating the father, trying to understand what his motivations were, trying to understand the decisions that he made and the effects they had on his family and his relationship with his children. The more I thought about it, the bigger those decisions became and the bigger an impact they had on my life. So that’s – there is a real cathartic process in a way. And I still don’t think I understand.
SM: When an audience watches the play today are they watching a snapshot of what life was like for a Pakistani family in the 1970s? IK: I think Ayub has caught it brilliantly, the texture of the time and the unsentimental piss-taking vitality of all of this family resonate far beyond this play at this particular time. The matrix of ideas that he’s exploring, the psychological factures, the humour, it all feels – we see it more and more clearly as time moves on. It’s as though he wrote the play in the shadows five years ago and we are now – the world has caught up with it and caught up with the issues the play was mining then. It captures the time then really well but it’s also a play that transcends that time and says truths about families and the dislocations of the people who embrace dominant cultures and the heritage they think they have.
UNDERSTUDIES Hamzah Aftab Maneer, Saleem & Dr/Mr Shah Hamzah Aftab grew up watching the 1999 film version of East Is East and feels a strong connection to the story and the characters. He finds it a pleasure to be a part of the company. He trained in performing arts acting for 4 years at The Birmingham Theatre School, which led him to East 15 on their BA Acting & Stage Combat 3-year degree. This is his first professional production after graduating over a month ago he feels that the opportunity to learn four parts is a challenge that he is ready for.
Sara Faraj Meena & Sajit Sara Faraj trained at the Manchester School of Acting. Sara’s theatre credits include: You Bury Me (Edinburgh International Festival 2021). TV credits include: Wolfe (SKY TV). Film credits include: Only Love Matters (KQ Movies).
Emma Keele Ella & Annie Emma trained at LAMDA and the Stella Adler Studio in New York. Emma’s theatre credits include: The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time (National Theatre – International Tour); Abigail’s Party (40th Anniversary Production, Theatre Royal Bath and UK No.1 Tour); The End of the Line, A Bunch Of Amateurs (Southwold Summer Repertory); Yen (Gothenburg English Studio Theatre); April In Paris, September in the Rain (UK No.1 Tour); Phaedra’s Love (Arcola Theatre) and Torn Out Pages (Gilded Balloon for the Edinburgh Festival). TV credits include: Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Downtown Abbey (ITV); Silent Witness, Doctors and New Tricks (BBC). Film credits include: Downhill (Crisis Films LTD). Emma won the Bazza Film Festival Best Actress Award in 2018 for her role in Jo (short). Emma also founded and runs Reduced Circumstances, a theatre company committed to nurturing talent and developing new work.
THE CREATIVE TEAM Ayub Khan Din Writer
Bretta Gerecke Set, Projection and Lighting Designer
Ayub Khan Din’s play East Is East (1996) was originally staged at the Royal Court Theatre and adapted into a feature film. The play and film have won a Writers’ Guild Award for Best New Writer and a British Academy Award. Other plays include Last Dance At Dum Dum (1999), Notes On Falling Leaves (2004) and Rafta, Rafta… (2007), which won a Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy. A film adaptation, All In Good Time, was released in 2012, a year after his sequel to East Is East, named West is West. Ayub’s most recent plays have been All The Way Home, directed by Mark Babych at the Lowry Theatre in Salford, musical comedy Bunty Berman Presents, produced on Broadway by The New Group, and an adaptation of E.R. Braithwaite’s To Sir, With Love, which toured the UK.
Bretta Gerecke is a lighting, set, costume and projection designer for Theatre, Circus, Opera, Film and Installation Art. She is the resident designer at Catalyst Theatre (Canada) where she co-creates and tours new work across North America, the UK and Australia. Bretta also designs for Cirque du Soleil, the RSC, The National Arts Centre, The Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Edmonton Opera, Calgary Opera, Vancouver Opera, The Citadel Theatre and The Grand Theatre. She is the recipient of over 25 awards for her work including Avenue Magazine’s Top 40 under 40, Global Television’s Woman of Vision, Best Emerging Artist and the Lucille Lortel Award for Costume Design. She recently represented Canada in Prague at the Scenography Quadrennial and her costume designs were exhibited in Moscow, Beijing, and Taipei. Bretta is a marathon runner and an archaeological illustrator.
Iqbal Khan Director Iqbal Khan has directed acclaimed productions at the RSC including Tartuffe, Antony and Cleopatra, Othello and Much Ado About Nothing. His other work includes; Educating Rita, Perfect Days, Beautiful Thing (Oldham Coliseum); Oleanna, Rafta Rafta (Bolton Octagon); Macbeth (Shakespeare’s Globe); Shakespeare at the Bowl (collaboration between LA Philharmonic & BBCSO at the Hollywood Bowl & Barbican); The Wildman of the West Indies (Donizetti opera for ETO/Hackney Empire/UK Tour); Treemonisha (Pegasus Opera); The Importance of Being Earnest: The Musical (Riverside Studios); The Killing of Sister George (Arts Theatre); Broken Glass (Tricycle/Vaudeville); A Slight Ache and Landscape (National Theatre).
Susan Kulkarni Costume Designer Susan Kulkarni is an international award winning costume designer for stage, screen and immersive theatre. She studied at Oxford University and RADA. She is Head of Costume for Secret Cinema, designing all their large-scale events from Bond to the forthcoming Bridgerton. Most recently she Costume Designed United Queendom (Les Enfants Terribles), Herding Cats (Soho Theatre) and Jeff Wayne’s immersive War of the Worlds. She designed over 2000 bespoke costumes for the UAE’s National Day 48 Celebration and the Closing Ceremony of the Islamic Solidarity Games. Other designs include the award winning Symphony in Blue and the Monaco Grand Prix parties for Diagio; Detroit, Cesario and