Dundalk resident Christopher Hamilton delivers the introduction to a scene in which a woman is injured after falling from a leaky roof and later dies.         photo by Heather Perlberg

Students create short pieces from interviews

by Heather Perlberg

    Ten Community College of Baltimore County students will perform theatrical pieces about living through war next week on the Dundalk campus.
    War Stories to Stage is based on interviews with a small group of international CCBC students, originally from countries in which war was a part of life. 
    “So many international students have lived through war,” said Michael Walsh, a speech and communications professor at CCBC Dundalk.
    Walsh interviewed six students – one each from Bosnia, Iran, Iraq, La Gambia, Liberia and the former Soviet Union – with associate professor of theater and speech Julie Lewis during the summer.
    In one skit based on the interviews, a boy and girl watch their mother die before going into hiding. In another, a woman is forced to watch her daughter being brutally raped. 
    “I was completely blown away by the lives that [these students have] had and the way they could stay strong and move forward [and in some cases] learn English and build a life,” Walsh said.
    The presentation of War Stories is associated with the Community Book Connection. All CCBC students were required to read Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone, a memoir  describing life as a boy soldier and issues surrounding children and war.
    Students in special topics class, crosslisted in both the theater and English departments, took the interviews and created short pieces from the tapes.
    “The purpose is to let people know from the students’ perspective what their classmates’ lives have been like in a creative, artful way,” Walsh said.
    War Stories to Stage became a 12-act dramatization that incorporates five of the six students’ stories.
    “It takes a lot out of you trying to put yourself there. But it’s a good experience,” said theater major Samantha Trionfo, 21, who plays a character who gets raped in one scene taken from Beah’s book.
    The students who will be performing – once at each of the three CCBC campuses – wrote the scripts, which Lewis then edited.
    “It’s been a challenge for them, but I think it’s been a good process for them … being socially aware of what’s happening in the world,” Lewis said, adding that only half the students involved are theater majors and some will be acting onstage for the first time.
    The performing students kept journals while listening to interviews and thinking about them, said Lewis, who directed the production. They also read The Laramie Project as an example of documentary-style theater.
    In one scene, Zuleika Tajiddin, 21, captures an argument between an Iraqi man and woman about whether their family should cross the border to Turkey.
    “When writing [the scene,] you want to make sure you are doing justice to these people’s lives,” Tajiddin said. “I would hope [the students interviewed] felt that we respected their experiences.”
    The performing students “have been committed and serious,” Lewis said.
    Charlesmont resident Christopher Hamilton, 20,  said he chose his scene purposefully, focussing on a woman receiving help from a taxi driver once she arrived in America from La Gambia.
    “I saw it as a sign of hope. That’s what I liked about that scene,” said Hamilton.
   
•    War Stories to Stage will be performed for free at CCBC Dundalk, 7200 Sollers Point Road, in Building K on Nov. 12 at 11:10 a.m. Info: 443-840-2787.