Visiting theater artist Bina Sharif will perform her one-person play “Afghan Woman” at Ohio State this week.
Sharif was born in Pakistan and emigrated to the United States more than 20 years ago. Her plays and writings often concern women’s issues in the West and in the the Muslim world.
“Afghan Woman” is a woman’s story about her life and experiences. Sharif performs onstage alone wearing a burqa for the duration of the performance, said Crystal Field, executive director of the “Theater for the New City” in New York where “Afghan Woman” premiered.
“I think she does it beautifully, and there is a lot of humor in it,” Field said.
Sharif studied to be a doctor in Pakistan, but when faced with a new wave of certification exams to qualify her degree from Pakistan in the United States and dwindling personal interest, she decided to pursue her artistic goals, she said.
“When I was studying medicine I was always a very artistic person. People used to say to me, ‘You don’t look like a doctor; you don’t seem like a scientist; you look more like an artist.’ I would laugh because I thought I could be both,” Sharif said.
Sharif’s impetus for writing “Afghan Woman” came from a picture she drew of an Afghan woman following Sept. 11. The terror of the event made it difficult for her to write. The images of Afghan women wearing burqas in the news found their way into her visual work, she said.
“Since I couldn’t write, I was doing a lot of drawing and I did a drawing of a nude woman; very colorful, but her face was very distraught, and I titled it ‘Afghan Woman,’ ” Sharif said.
Field said Sharif’s performance is special because she is able to develop a sense of camaraderie with members of the audience. Sharif achieves this through her ability to weave humor into serious situations, she said.
“She has an ironic sense of humor that’s very fine. You feel uplifted at the end of her plays,” Field said.
Sharif’s performance will be presented with the help of grants and partnerships with university groups, said professor Lesley Ferris, chair of the theater department. Sharif’s work came to the attention of the department through a member who happened to see one of her performances.
“We were lucky that one of our faculty were in New York last year and happened to see it,” Ferris said.
Sharif will be involved with a number of activities while visiting OSU. She will be visiting theater classes and women’s studies classes and holding open workshops, Ferris said.
“I did not come to Columbus to sit in my hotel room,” Sharif said.
Sharif’s ability to weave her knowledge of the West with the Muslim world in which she was born comes through in her work. She laments the isolation that people in an individualistic society often feel as result of their personal freedom, she said.
“In this country it is a crime to say you are unhappy; you always have to behave as if you are happy. If you say you are unhappy, people think you are a failure, but it’s OK to say ‘I’m unhappy.’ Perhaps somebody is trying to reach out … you don’t reach out to people because they don’t allow you,” she said.
“Afghan Woman” will be performed at 8 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday at the Ray Bowen Theatre in the Drake Performance Center.
