Artistes Yan Duyvendak and Omar Ghayatt come from two ends of a spectrum — the former is Dutch, gay and atheist, and the latter is Egyptian, straight and Muslim. Over a schism, they face the other and shape theatre from dialogues. Still in Paradise, the play, was staged at the International Theatre Festival of Kerala and will be held at Delhi’s Oddbird Theatre on Wednesday. Excerpts from an interview with Duyvendak: Since 9/11, one side is prepared for an invasion by the other and the rhetoric includes veiled women and hoards of barbarians. How did the two of you come together? We met because we both benefited from a grant from the Swiss council for the arts, Pro Helvetia. I received a residency to go to Cairo, while Omar received one to go to Bern in Switzerland. We met when I was in Cairo and Omar had not yet left for Switzerland. Once I was back in Switzerland, I saw Omar there again, a couple of times. At a certain point, it was clear that Omar was the perfect partner for a project that had the intent to look at the conflicts between East and West, Islam and capitalism. You have been performing since 2008. How has the narrative changed since then? In 2008, the paradigm that the project was based upon, at a geopolitical level, was 9 With time and the Arab Spring, that paradigm seemed to disappear. The world became more complex and more open. Now, it has become worse again, with all the extremism, (Donald) Trump and the whole shebang. We try to cope with those changes. Omar calls the project our little ritual. We create new fragments to digest the things that happen to us, give them shape, overcome them or learn to live with them. How did you design the play so that spectators choose which scenes are to be played out in full? The project is a device, a kind of machine in which we all enter — barefooted and at the same level. Because all of us are, if we want it or not, in this situation where the East meets West. The full amount of finished scenes that we have would mean a time of 4.30 hours. People choose the scenes they want to see. We do this for who reasons — because we want to put forward that we are living in democracies — although some countries aren’t. And because we think we cannot have a full vision of the “problem” of East meeting West. We can only show bits and pieces. That’s why we call these scenes fragments. Each fragment talks about a specific problem or issue that we have encountered in the last 10 years that we have been working together — religion, sexuality, but also eating together. This is your first time in India but what has been audience response to the play across the world? The reactions of the audiences show us how different the relationships between Muslims and non-Muslims can be, according to where we are. Or how much an audience knows about Islam can vary from one place to another, also from one evening to another. We are very curious to see what we will learn here. Still in Paradise, brought to India by the Swiss Arts Council, will be staged at Oddbird Theatre today, 8 pm onwards
