{"id":38331,"date":"2008-05-05T14:57:12","date_gmt":"2008-05-05T19:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/home.bates.edu\/?p=38331"},"modified":"2016-01-15T12:00:02","modified_gmt":"2016-01-15T17:00:02","slug":"hassan-abdulrazzak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2008\/05\/05\/hassan-abdulrazzak\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraqi playwright to discuss his play, &#039;Baghdad Wedding&#039;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><a href='https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2008\/05\/72abdulrazzak.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"140\" height=\"140\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2008\/05\/72abdulrazzak.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium alignright\" alt=\"72abdulrazzak\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Scientist and playwright <a href=\"http:\/\/abdulrazzak.weebly.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Hassan Abdulrazzak<\/a>, a Mellon Learning Associate at Bates College, will discuss his critically acclaimed play, <em>Baghdad Wedding<\/em>, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 6, in Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Ave. The public is invited to attend free of charge.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a rare opportunity to hear about the war in Iraq from the  perspective of a British Iraqi,&#8221; says Christina Malcolmson, professor of  English.<\/p>\n<p>Abdulrazzak, a biologist doing stem-cell research at the Royal  Veterinary College, north of London, became a first-time playwright with  <em>Baghdad Wedding<\/em>, a big hit at London&#8217;s Soho Theatre during summer 2007. Praised by London drama critics, <em>Baghdad Wedding<\/em> was called &#8220;&#8216;hot theatre,&#8221; by the <em>Evening Standard<\/em> and &#8220;undoubtedly an important, topical play&#8230;superbly entertaining,&#8221; by the <em>Telegraph<\/em>. <em>The Times<\/em> praised the author&#8217;s &#8220;distinctive voice and special authority,&#8221; while the <em>Evening Standard<\/em> nominated Abdulrazzak for best new playwright of 2007.<\/p>\n<p>Abdulrazzak&#8217;s family left Iraq when he was 8 to escape the regime of  Saddam Hussein. In the play, he depicts the consternation of westernized  Iraqi medical students in the United Kingdom at the beginning of the  Iraq War; their horror when a wedding party for one of their friends in  Iraq is bombed by mistake by the Americans; and the different ways their  commitments to Islam and Iraq develop as a result.<\/p>\n<p>The plot alludes to ethnic wedding movies, like <em>Monsoon Wedding<\/em>, <em>Bend It Like Beckham<\/em> and <em>My Big Fat Greek Wedding<\/em>,  but with a twist. Funny and clever throughout, the play immerses the  audience in the political situation to educate Western audiences about  the Iraqi middle classes. As Abdulrazzak told <em>Time Magazine<\/em>,  &#8220;What I wanted to do was flag what I know about Iraq. It&#8217;s now being  seen as a religiously crazed country&#8230;I wanted to show the middle-class  segment that people could relate to.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Chase Lounge talk includes filmed extracts from the performance  at the Soho Theatre. Abdulrazzak&#8217;s visit is sponsored by the Mellon  Learning Associates, the College Lectures Committee and the Department  of English.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientist and playwright Hassan Abdulrazzak, a Mellon Learning Associate at Bates College, will discuss his critically acclaimed play, Baghdad Wedding, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 6, in Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Ave. The public is invited to attend free of charge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[4471,9491],"class_list":["post-38331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-event-highlights","tag-iraq","tag-middle-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38331"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89381,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38331\/revisions\/89381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}