Peanut Butter & Blueberries (NHB Modern Plays) E-Book

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 80

Beschreibung

Hafsah and Bilal aren't looking for love. Hafsah has her faith, her books, her dreams. Bilal's just trying to get through uni. Studying in London, far from their hometowns of Bradford and Birmingham, they find common ground over a peanut butter and blueberry sandwich. But just as their connection is growing, the world around them becomes harder to ignore. As competing opportunities, obligations and injustices get in the way, will they be able to choose each other? Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan's play Peanut Butter & Blueberries is a tender and bittersweet love story that explores how to love when the weight of the world is on your shoulders. It was first performed at Kiln Theatre, London, in 2024, directed by Sameena Hussain.

Leseprobe

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan

PEANUT BUTTER & BLUEBERRIES

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Original Production Details

Writer’s Note

Acknowledgements

Characters

Notes

Peanut Butter & Blueberries

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Peanut Butter and Blueberries was first performed at Kiln Theatre, London, on 8 August 2024. The cast was as follows:

BILAL

Usaamah Ibraheem Hussain

HAFSAH

Humera Syed

Director

Sameena Hussain

Designer

Khadija Raza

Lighting Designer

Rajiv Pattani

Sound Designer

Helen Skiera

Movement Director

Natasha Harrison

Casting Director

Julia Horan CDG

Voice and Dialect Coach

Gurkiran Kaur

Costume Supervisor

Maariyah Sharjil

Production Manager

Marty Moore

Company Stage Manager

April Johnson

Deputy Stage Manager

Aiman Bandali

Assistant Stage Manager

Amara Bryan

Technician

Mae Elliott

Show Crew

Chioma Bayo

Wardrobe Manager

Keshini Ranasinghe

Revolve Programmer

Matt Neubauer

Lighting Programmer

Stevie Carty

Production Electrician

Paul Salmon

Production Sound Engineer

Dave Judd

Rigger

Jess Wilson

Production Carpenter

Taigh McCarthy

Set Built By

Kiln Theatre Workshops Beam Studios Revolving Stage Company

In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.

All the praise is for Allah, Lord of all worlds of beings.

Oh Allah, send blessings and peace upon our master

Writer’s Note

This is a love story.

Bilal and Hafsah are both practising Muslims. Islam is not the topic of the play but one of its contexts. It is ubiquitous, a texture, always present, therefore the characters must be played by Muslim actors. Since their ethnic identities are key to their connection, the actors should also be specifically Pakistani/ Kashmiri.

Both Bilal and Hafsah have unspoken religious boundaries in terms of physical touch. They never touch. Instead, the intimacy between them should be shown in the myriad of other ways it exists. How intimate can a look be? What about a silence? A touch held back?

The ‘barrier’ to their love is the impact of living in a society built on brutalising capitalism, racial oppression, colonialism, the traumas of historic erasure and the indignities of policing and poverty.

Most scenes take place in London, things are often moving. The play spans a year.

There should be direct engagement with the audience throughout; eye contact and knowing looks with audience members, possibly even during moments of dialogue between the characters.

They know they are telling their own story, although we should get the sense they are telling it separately, not together. It feels as though it has already happened at times, and that it is still unfolding at others, hence it is always real for one of them, even as it is known already.

Choices must always be made, even if everything has already been written.

Acknowledgements

In the name of Allah the Most Compassionate and Most Merciful. Alhamdulilah, all praise and thanks is to Allah who allowed me to write this play and granted me the wonderful team of people who facilitated its fruition. It is incumbent upon me to thank the people through whom God facilitated this project and they are many.

Thank you to my fierce and loving agent Davina Shah and to the always generous and caring Nafeesah Butt for first handing my poetry collection to Indhu Rubasingham who commissioned this play. Thank you, Indhu, for asking me the open-ended question of what story I would like to see that I had not seen before, and for trusting and believing that I could execute it. Thank you for committing to my story so whole-heartedly and ensuring we saw it through.

The journey of writing is never straightforward and the many drafts of this play were a result of kind encouragement, feedback and notes from a multitude of people who helped to pull out of this story the heart of what I wanted to uncover. Thank you to my ever-generous brother Zain Dada who has always made time for me, selflessly shared resources and knowledge and who has kept the path he paves illuminated for the rest of us, Allah bless you. Thanks also to maatin whose enthusiasm for sharing and listening informed the way I wanted to approach theatre in general and encouraged me to be firm in my vision. May Allah reward you also for all the ways you went above and beyond in supporting me through this process, you have taught me so much about what it means to follow the sunna of ‘preferring others to yourself’. To Tom Wright who has been with the story from its inception, thank you for striking the perfect balance between trusting the characters and their world, whilst equipping me to bring them to life in brighter and bolder ways. Thanks for your generosity and humility, it has been deeply appreciated.

More thanks than I can express go to Sameena Hussain who not only directed this play’s debut but introduced and made the world of theatre a possibility for me in the first place. Thank you for the very first time you asked me for a cup of tea in Leeds. Thank you for making me always feel so seen, for never gatekeeping, for listening and for pushing back. And thank you for fiercely loving the characters (and the North!) as much as I do, and committing to doing them justice.

I owe huge thanks to Amit Sharma and the entire staff at Kiln Theatre who facilitated this play coming to life for the first time – thank you for always being so warm and encouraging. A special thanks for being open to all the things I wanted to put in place to ensure this play wasn’t just ‘inclusive’ of Muslim people in story, but also in reality – from prioritising prayer times and prayer space, to dry runs and more. Thanks for your willingness in these endeavours, I hope they outlast this play! To the entire production team, the marketing team and every staff member, thanks for your patience and efforts. Thank you also to all the actors who helped develop the piece and especially Usman Nawaz whose reading of Bilal made the play click for the first time.

Thank you to Humera Syed and Usaamah Ibraheem Hussain for bringing Hafsah and Bilal to life so lovingly for the first time. Thanks for caring and understanding, for sitting in the difficult places, and for working so incredibly hard. Thanks to the whole creative team who have first brough this play to life including Rajiv Pattani, Helen Skiera, Natasha Harrison, Julia Horan, Gurkiran Kaur, Marty Moore, Maariyah Sharjil, April Johnson, Amara Bryan and Joni Carter, you’re amazing. A special thanks go to Aiman Bandali and Khadija Raza for going above and beyond your roles to inform and allow our Hafsah and Bilal to be as complicated as possible. To Khadija, thank you for designing such a wonderful first theatrical world for the play, giving permission for our stories to be abstract and symbolic rather than always open to voyeurs.

I must loop back to thank my agent Davina once more because her tireless commitment to having my back is one of the only things that saw me through this whole process. Thank you for ensuring we got through all the knots and challenges of this process in a way that meant the story and its intention were never compromised. That has meant the world to me.

And of course, this play would not exist without the constant love of my family to whom I will never do justice, no matter how many acknowledgements I write. Thank you for teaching me everything I know about dialogue, and especially about how much light and love can exist in a world of tribulations. And thank you for being the people with whom I learnt and continue to learn the most about character development and human complexity amidst love and for the sake of God. Allah bless you all always.

Thanks to my teachers who motivate me to try and always have lofty intentions. Whose transmission of knowledge that traces back to the Prophet Muhammed, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, inspires me to measure this play not by its reception in this world but by its benefit in view of the life to come. Thank you for teaching me to only deem significant what Allah deems significant and to not place false value on what does not deserve it. Allah elevate you.

Finally, thank you to my husband, Rizwan. Bilal and Hafsah would not be who they are without you, and nor would my understanding of love. Thank you for putting up with all the chaos of writing and putting on a play and for journeying through it with me. All praise is to Allah who made you the one with whom I share a soul.

May God forgive me my shortcomings in this project and protect it from being unbeneficial. Ameen.

My heart is at ease knowing that what was meant for me will never miss me, and that what misses me was never meant for me.

Imam Al-Shafi’ee

Characters

BILAL, twenty-five, from Birmingham, has a beard and a proper Pakistani-Brum-boy accent

HAFSAH, twenty-three, from Bradford, wears hijab and loose clothing, she only has a very slight Yorkshire lilt

Notes

A forward slash ( / ) denotes overlapping dialogue.

Text in bold denotes direct address.

This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.

One Day (November)