Kuwaitis, Iraqis Collaborate on New Play

As bitterness over Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait slowly, painfully gives way to hope for reconciliation now that he has been toppled, Kuwaiti and Iraqi artists have collaborated on a play that portrays both peoples as Saddam’s victims.

With its multiple themes of tyranny, war and the yearning for freedom, “Melting the Ice” was on the program Saturday and Sunday as part of an international theater festival in Cairo.

Iraqi actor Abbas Jumaili, who appears in the play as both narrator and a villager caught between American and Iraqi forces during the war that toppled Saddam, said in an interview that Iraqis and Kuwaitis “are bound by history, and time will prove that they are indispensable to each other.”

As if to prove Jumaili’s point, when Iraqi musician and singer Kawkab Hamza takes the stage in the play’s last scene to perform his once-famous, “O Flying Birds, When Are You Coming Back Home?” both Iraqis and Kuwaitis in the audience sang along.

The play’s British-trained Kuwaiti director, Sulayman al-Bassam, who also wrote the script, told The Associated Press he would like to take his play to the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, or the southern Iraqi city of Basra once security permits.

In a crisp 85 minutes, “Melting the Ice” explores in Arabic and English the trauma a brutal dictator can inflict not only on his people but on his neighbors and the world. It tackles whether those who served the dictator to save their lives or protect their interests bear guilt.

With the U.S.-led coalition that toppled Saddam still under attack, the play also shows Iraqis still haunted by their past and divided over whether to see themselves as liberated or invaded.

In one scene, a U.S. general with strong religious beliefs, played by British actor Nigel Barrat, declares it is his mission to free Iraqis and bring them democracy. His frustration at what he sees as Iraqis’ lack of gratitude increases with every bombing and ambush against his troops. He questions an Iraqi and is told the Americans are hated.

“You need to hate us because this is the veil you use to hide your problems. Without this hatred you are alone in your cave,” the general responds.

Barrat said he sympathized with the general, understood his sense of duty – and felt his dilemma showed “life is never black and white.”

The show is sponsored by the Kuwaiti Committee for Fraternity with the Iraqi People, a private reconciliation group funded by Kuwaiti writers, royal family members and businessmen.

The play debuted in late June in Kuwait, where Sulayman al-Hizami, a critic for the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Qabbas, welcomed it as “a milestone.” But director al-Bassam said some Kuwaitis had reservations about Iraqi actors performing on a Kuwaiti stage.

During commemorations in Kuwait on the Aug. 2 anniversary of Saddam’s 1990 invasion, commentators and ordinary Kuwaitis spoke of wounds that had not healed and bloody memories that had not faded.

Criticism was heaped on a Kuwait football club when it recently tried to hire an Iraqi player. Kuwaitis also have also refused to lift a ban on Iraqi singers.

A U.S.-led coalition ousted Saddam’s forces from Kuwait in 1991. This year, Kuwait allowed U.S. troops to use its territory to topple Saddam, has welcomed the interim Iraqi authority set up by the coalition and has opened the border with its neighbor for the first time since the Gulf War.

Director al-Bassam said he hoped his “Melting the Ice” could be “a bridge that both people can cross” to return to “their beautiful old days.” Many Iraqi and Kuwaiti families, including his own, have roots and properties in both countries, al-Bassam said.