MIDDLE EAST LETTER
Lana Komsany is a little woman with a strong character that nothing can stop. The neck shaved under her bun, in jeans-basketball under her three-quarter abaya, the 44-year-old Saudi woman digs her furrow in an area still largely dominated by men. A theater teacher and director, film actress and soon to be director, the artist wants to bring the voices of women to the stage and to the screen. And break the taboos of a society still stuck in social conservatism, despite the freedoms granted to women by the reforms launched in 2016 at the initiative of Crown Prince Mohammed Ben Salman.
His determination was forged in adversity. After studying theater in the United States, she moved to Egypt in 2001 to live from her passion, which is still prohibited in Saudi Arabia. She returned to her hometown, Jeddah, known as the “liberal”, eight years later. As a newlywed, she took over as head of the theater department at Effat Women’s University and the Visual Arts Club. Now a single mother of three, she describes herself as a survivor. For ten years she was locked in an abusive marriage. She suffered the reproaches of her husband because she was working and he was not. She suffered the blows, then, one day, she began to give them back, in distress and rage.
Ten days after the birth of her third child, now 5 years old, she left, helped by her mother, also divorced and resolutely feminist. The family code had just been reformed and recourse to divorce for wives made easier. “It took me a week to get a divorce, she says. My mother, it had taken her months. I was a teenager. We had to flee to Cairo to escape my father. » She won custody of her children in a single hearing. “My ex-husband was trying to tarnish my image. The social worker told him there was no point, the government would be with me anyway,” she testifies.
Censorship proof
“The country is changing rapidly, but we are still under patriarchal domination, believes Lana Komsany. Even if there is a hotline to report domestic violence, the issue is not going to be taken seriously until people talk about it. We must start with the education of the new generations. » His play, I’m a Woman (“I am a woman”), is inspired by her story. It took him four years to set up this project, to deal with censorship, funding problems and authorizations. The piece was finally performed on March 8, on the occasion of International Women’s Rights Day, in the intimate setting of the Fennec space. This community center, opened in January by stand-up comedian Youssef Bakr, has become the rallying point for Jeddah’s youth passionate about the scene. In this unique place in the kingdom, not everything is allowed. Talking about gender, religion or politics on stage is still prohibited.
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