Listening to NPR’s Morning Edition while driving my son to school today, I was chilled by this report from Lourdes Garcia-Navarro on the work of the Iraqi Center for Children’s Culture in Baghdad. Following is an excerpt of the words that grabbed me, though I challenge you to actually click and listen to all that I heard here:
Back at the rehearsal, the play is ending. After the scene of the car bombing, a young girl comes on stage and draws a question mark.
Rusol Nawfal, 11, says her role is a simple one.
“I draw that [question mark] in order to ask why — why are my friends getting killed?” Nawfal says matter-of-factly. “This is a play, but it’s also reality because there are children playing on the streets and car bombs do kill them. We have not enjoyed our childhood. We stay at home and watch cartoons, if we have electricity. If we don’t have electricity, we either sleep or sit around the house.
She starts to cry and walks away. A teacher says her father has just been killed.
The rehearsal starts again, and Nawfal walks back on stage. The play poses the question, but gives the children no answers.
Regrettably, I don’t have the answers either. But I am reminded that art matters. Theatre matters. And the work of a playwright can serve as a salve for the writer, the actor(s), the audience and, dare I believe, a society.
I urge you to listen this report. Hug a child, be it your own or one close to you, and hold a high thought for what Michelle Obama passionately proposed last night during her Democratic National Convention keynote speech, “The world as it should be.”
Given our gifts and talents, what can we do to make it so?
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