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Makayla Davis, Wex Public and University Programs Intern
Oct 02, 2019
Ahead of the October 7 world premiere of Sahar Speaks: Voices of Women from Afghanistan, Wex Public and University Programs Intern Makayla Davis spoke with Lesley Ferris, Ohio State Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor of Theatre, about the event. Since 2016, Ferris, who also serves as artistic director and cofounder of Palindrome Productions, has commissioned and produced four plays inspired by the Sahar Speaks project—a program that provides training and job opportunities for women journalists working on the ground in Afghanistan. Two of those plays, written by Nushin Arbabzadah and Alia Bano, will be performed here at the Wex as part of the project On the Front Lines: Performing Afghanistan. The event is followed by a talk with award-winning Dutch photojournalist Joël van Houdt whose work has documented the journeys of Afghan refugees around the world.
What is your personal connection to Sahar Speaks? My oldest daughter, Amie Ferris Rottman, is a journalist and she’s currently in Russia in Moscow with the Washington Post...Her first job was with Reuters in Russia for several years, then they sent her to Kabul. She was there for two years and she has a personal journalistic commitment to focus on stories of women whenever possible.
She was scheduled to cover a story on a women's rock concert in Kabul…She wanted a photographer for it, and she asked Reuters if she could hire a woman photographer...And they said no, you have to use one of the Afghan men who work for us. That upset her greatly. She decided she needed a break and applied for a fellowship for professional journalists. She received one. Her project was Sahar Speaks, an organization she established for training Afghan women journalists to write for Western press.
It’s just been a thrill for me. When I lived in London some years ago, I ran a full-time pub theater, and then the building closed down. Recently, I had the urge to get it going again. So, with my youngest daughter—my theater daughter—we set up a small-scale theater company doing one production a year in 2014. I was planning for the next season when I read the first 12 stories by Afghan women published [through Sahar Speaks] in the Huffington Post in 2016 … I was so moved by them and said to myself, some of these are crying out to be on the stage! We need to physicalize them! Get those human bodies playing these roles! So, we finally got the go-ahead and we produced three short plays inspired by three of the stories.
What is the significance of bringing these stories to Ohio State? Why does it matter that these productions are brought to Columbus? Afghanistan is often in the news. Sometimes, we wish it wasn’t; it’s in the news because of violence happening there ... Because of the public nature of this project, the fact that it’s at the Wexner Center ... will put Afghanistan more in the local community...The Middle East Studies Center [has] already started sending things out, so I think that there are multiple methods of trying to get this out to [the] Columbus community.
This is an important part of US history. Many of our soldiers have died there. I think a lot of people don’t realize the significance of that country in world history. In the 19th century it was contested territory between Russia and Britain, referred to as the “Great Game,” a sought-after trade route for many years. I feel we should be learning more about this country and [acknowledging] our country’s involvement in these world sites where there is major violence.
What do you hope that the audience gains from this performance here at the Wex? A key component is to hear the voices of these women. The actual original story coming to life, and it was written by an Afghan woman. And at least, in the case of Nushin Arbabzadah, it’s also a theatrical piece by an Afghan woman. I think hearing these voices is so important to our world right now. And just the act of doing it is a political act with a capital P. It’s making those voices available, which are really invisible and unheard in general.
Why do you think the stories told through Sahar Speaks have such a deep meaning beyond what is stated on the surface? Getting to see and hear the insights of humans sharing this planet with us is so important. And it’s women! We need a bigger view of the world, and I think this country is focused internally particularly now—and understandably, considering what’s happening within our democracy. Yet I don’t think we should lose sight of the international view of the world we live in. To at least come to some kind of more open-minded knowledge of it.
Makayla Davis is a third-year undergraduate student at Ohio State studying landscape architecture in the Knowlton School with a minor in African American and African studies. She is involved on campus as an ambassador for the school of architecture, the event coordinator for the school’s nationwide service group SERVitecture, the secretary of Ohio State’s Student Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects, and she is a Land Grant Opportunity Scholarship recipient.
