In a European society built like a puzzle of cultures, it still remains a challenge to bring the Arab/Middle Eastern and European social groups closer together, even when they share the same environment. For some time now, these worlds have mainly met through media coverage. This has only sharpened the stereotypes and simplified ideasthese worlds have about each other's reality. It has crystallized identities that are actually mutable.
But who's the Arab/ Middle Eastern man, who is the European? Where do the migrants who feel at home in both worlds or don't belong in either of them? What kind of identity do they have? What can we really know about the other and ourselves? Aren't we all continuously being shaped and transformed by the slightly absurd adventure we call life? Can we break open the clichés and images in which we are trapped and appreciate each other as fluid hybrid creatures, patchwork quilts and life experiences? Can theater - as a place of encounter with others - be an instrument that brings us closer together despite our differences? These topical questions are at the heart of Enkidu Khaled's work. Author Hassan Blassim's body of work, and specifically his nbook God 99, adresses the same questions.
Enkidu Khaled is the first theater Director to bring Hassan Blassim's novel God 99 to the stage. The main character and narrator of God 99 is Hassan Owl, an Iraqi who arrives in Finland as a writer and refugee.
The performance starts from a seemingly convetional interview situation. Blassim will take the stage and play a character who's close to his real self but also reflects the narrator of God 99. He will be interviewed about his articles and the collection of portraits in God 99 by two additional performers, Joachim Robbrecht and Nele Vereecken. These two performers will also play characters. Robbrecht plays a writer who collects and writes down refugee stories. Vereecken plays a journalist dedicated to writing about migration issues and policies in Western Europe. From time to time these two will become characters from Blassim's book God 99 and will be interviewed by the narrator. In this way, the performance will unfold in a series of interviews where all three performers switch between the positions of interviewer and interviewee.