Sara Aniqah Malik presents her debut play, SALAAM, premiering at VAULT 2019 and exploring Islamophobia and the experience of being a Muslim in modern London.
London. 2017. The first night of Ramadan. Rema and Mariam prepare to break the fast. Quiet, alone, and at peace, they prepare for a night of contemplation. A crash. Glass shatters. Everything is changed.
SALAAM explores the relationship between a mother and a daughter as they face mounting Islamophobia, throwing their lives into turmoil. Set during Ramadan 2017, the story explores mental health and the notion of gendered racial abuse.
Rema, the daughter, takes a knock to her mental health and turns to writing to heal the wounds, but she is torn between her duty to the community and her duty to herself: how does she thrive in a country that was never built for her? Meanwhile, she is approached by a benevolent girl from her neighbourhood, Ellie, whose offer to help may possess a more sinister ulterior motive.
Combining live music and lyrical language, SALAAM is an experimental and political piece of theatre that charts the cycle of Islamist terrorism and Islamophobia, and the way it affects the everyday Muslim. In writing this play, Sara Aniqah Malik has conducted interviews with Muslim women as well as drawing on her own experience to create an authentic play that seeks to speak the language of London today and asks us how to make a better London of tomorrow.
SALAAM is at VAULT Festival 30th January to 3rd February 2019.
