BINA SHARIF
Pakistani Muslim and New York-based playwright and actor Bina Sharif will perform monologues excerpted from three of her plays, including her acclaimed post-Sept. 11 work, "Afghan Woman." Muslim monologues
Star-Bulletin staff
Sharif will speak afterward about America and Islam and the current world crisis.
"Afghan Woman," which Sharif performs in a burqa, is about an Everywoman enslaved by Taliban restrictions, whose children are dead due to American bombing raids and who entreats her global spectators to undo the silence in which the world has clad her.
Sharif will also perform excerpts from "Rats in the Tunnel," about a homeless American woman who believes both her life and the world will change for the better on the eve of the millennium, and "My Ancestor's House," in which a Muslim mother in Pakistan struggles to balance a full-time job and family responsibilities.
"My artistic concern is to reach a wide audience from all spheres of life," she wrote in the anthology "Contemporary Plays by Women of Color," "to make people aware of the fragility of human feelings, emotional conflicts and the difficulty of just surviving. My writing expresses the horrifying alienation and loneliness which come with the pursuit of freedom in the West." She said her characters often "reflect the lack of understanding between Eastern and Western values.
Sharif will also speak about her play "Democracy and Islam" and lead a discussion on issues raised by her plays at an East-West Center seminar from noon to 1:15 p.m. Tuesday at John A. Burns Hall. Then she'll be at Leeward Community College at 5 p.m. that day to repeat her performance of excerpts from "Afghan Woman."
Talks about "Women in Modernity" Bina Sharif
Where: Earle Ernst Lab Theatre, Kennedy Theatre, University of Hawaii-Manoa
When: 2 p.m. Sunday
Admission: Free, limited seating
Info: www.outreach.hawaii.edu
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