Third Culture Kids, a Perth-based theatre company with roots that stretch worldwide, is bringing their show Sharbat to The Blue Room Theatre. We spoke with Writer and Performer Dore Khan about the show ahead of opening night.
Gutter Culture: Sharbat is a show that draws on common threads about connection and diversity, with the three characters and their stories resonating specifically with female Muslim Australian experience. What’s the key theme of the show in your opinion?
Image courtesy of Third Culture Kids
Dore Khan: Trust. If I had to sum the whole show in one word it would be trust.
Trust is necessary for good communication to thrive and as we know, the secret to any good relationship is communication.
In Sharbat, the 3 Gül sisters have a hard time trusting one another with their secrets and struggles. There is this reluctance to be vulnerable and share emotional burdens, which ends up tearing the family apart. In a way, this is also representative of what's happening in our country at the moment.
What we are seeing more and more of in our society is a lack of trust and the proliferation of mistrust between communities. We don’t trust people to work without an ulterior motive. We don’t trust them to be good neighbours because we come from different experiences and backgrounds. We don’t trust people who have a differing faith, race or sexuality than us and this ends up stunting our ability to foster communication and understanding. There is an implication through our media that mistrust of “the other” is a safer option than communicating and understanding. In the end, mistrust leads us down some pretty dark paths as a society on the whole and it tends to be minority groups that end up bearing the brunt of this violence.
GC: This show sees you make a debut performance onstage. How have you found taking on a performing role as the writer of the show?
DK: It’s been a real journey that’s for certain. Relinquishing control of a script so heavily steeped in my own experiences to a creative team is hard as a writer. However, I have been lucky to work with people whose dedication to the heart and soul of the story has made this transition easier.
As the writer of the show, I have seen the script go from a skeleton idea to its own miniverse, fleshed out by actors and translated from page to stage by our set designer and technical designers. It's not quite how I imagined. I dare say it’s turned out better than I could have hoped for as an emerging artist.
There are still moments on stage that hurt to perform, even after all the years gone by between the experience that inspired the script and the rehearsal process. I am lucky that in those moments Michelle Aitken (Director) and Daley James King (Stage Manager) make sure that they check in with me about my mental health and do some self-care exercises with me. Mental health is and always will be a priority for me in a rehearsal room no matter what capacity I find myself in there for.
GC: The word that forms the show’s title is likely to be unknown to some Australians but carries familiarity for many Muslim Australians. Tell us about how you decided on this title.
DK: Sharbat is the Urdu and Pashto word for Cordial. There were many reasons why this ended up being the name of the show. Any cordial lover will tell you that their ratio of syrup to water is the “correct way to make cordial” but in reality it really comes down to personal preference. I feel similarly about Islam as a construct of faith or being Australian as an identity. There will always be people who will insist that there’s only one right way to be Muslim or there’s only one cultural narrative for Australia. The reality is that only we can decide how we identify and what works for us. We don’t get to police other people’s identities because we don’t live their lives. No matter what ratio of water to cordial, Sharbat is Sharbat. The rest is a matter of personal preference.
Also Sharbat is an anagram of the names of the three sisters SH(azia) AR(ooj) BAT(ool) who are symbolic of the many phases of my own Muslim Australian story.
GC: How much of your own experience have you brought to the story?
DK: Sharbat is a cocktail of experiences! One part fiction to two parts fact, garnished with plot twist. While the show is semi-autobiographical, there are experiences of close friends in there too. It isn’t a blow by blow account of my life by any means. But it does play on themes that have been a large part of my growing up Muslim in Perth post 9/11.
Image courtesy of Third Culture Kids
GC: Tell us about the three characters—played by yourself, Sabrina Hafid and Mani Mae Gomes—how do their connections and differences play out? Have any aspects of your connection with the characters emerged for you in real life?
DK: Shaz, Batty, and Roo Gül are three young women with seemingly little in common at first. Shaz is a young housewife turned influencer and born-again Muslim. She is blessed with tonnes of confidence, her own home, and was obviously quite popular in high school. In contrast, her two younger sisters have always been outsiders and misfits. Middle child Roo is a shy receptionist, who loves old buildings, vintage typewriters and savouring quiet nights in watching Netflix. The youngest Gül girl Batty is a biomedicine student with a passion for fashion and is a regular at punk gigs around Perth. Roo and Batty are barely a year apart and their bond is quite strong. Shaz being the oldest by 4 years tries to play a mothering role which often leads to some funny moments through the play given her short fuse.
I would say I am equal parts each character. My wardrobe and music taste is very similar to Batty’s, and much like Roo I have an obsession with vintage items. I would say that Shaz's stubborn streak is something I definitely see in myself. They work beautifully in tandem with one another, propping each other up in moments of vulnerability. I think it's something a lot of people might relate to in their own family and friendship circles.
GC: You’re doing interesting things with the performance space. What are you hoping for it to evoke?
DK: The Blue Room Theatre have been so generous in their approach to Sharbat. Upon accepting our application for the 2019 season, they ensured that they paired us with a space that would best suit the feel of the piece. We wanted Sharbat to evoke a feeling of closeness and familiarity; like you're watching your own family go through the hustle and bustle of daily life.
We are activating the Kaos room at The Blue Room Theatre for Sharbat and turning it into a cute little apartment, reminiscent of the dorms many of us have lived in during our student days. It's a close, intimate space with audience members sitting a stone’s throw from all the action!
GC: Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know?
DK: There is a tendency for non-Muslim folk to assume that there is only one Muslim narrative and being an outlier means that you're not “doing Islam right”. There are as many versions of Islam as there are Muslims, in my opinion. To bring a 1400 year old faith system into the 21st century so that it is relevant to the person practicing it—that is a real struggle for a lot of young Muslim folk, regardless of where they come from. It is important to humanise these experiences by presenting nuanced depictions of Muslim womanhood on stage.
If you're Muslim and reading this interview and find it resonates with you, please come to see the show and stay afterwards for a chat. Our burdens are lighter when they are shared in a safe space and I would hope any space where Third Culture Kids hosts a show is a safe space to talk.
Sharbat runs from 24 October to 2 November. Get tickets here.