Unpacking ‘Noura’
Playwright Heather Raffo brings her story of Iraqi struggle and survival to the Detroit Public Theatre
By Weam Namou
At the end of the first preview of the play Noura, four Chaldean young women in their 20s remained for a while in the lobby of the Detroit Public Theatre. Courtney Burkett, founder and producing artistic director of the theatre, asked if they were waiting for someone.
“We’d like to speak to the writer, Heather,” they explained.
Seeing their earnest - and later persistent - request, Burkett made several attempts to get them backstage, but the director of the play explained the cast was busy receiving notes. The young women succumbed but made a final request: “Can you please tell Heather that this play was very moving for us because we had never seen our community represented before on the stage. We felt really seen.”
One of them even had tears in her eyes, so Burkett gave in. “Of course, you can come back!”
“The play is expressing many things that are sensitive to the culture and holding them in a loving way,” said Heather Raffo, writer and actor. “It’s expressing taboos but working through them in open-hearted, familial ways, so the young women felt very represented and challenged by the piece.”
Other Chaldeans have since talked to Raffo about how essential the play was in “talking about things they thought maybe the community wasn’t talking about or needed to talk about more openly.”
Noura is about a Chaldean family celebrating Christmas when secrets come out. The main character, the mother of the family, is torn between her life in America and her life back home in Iraq. Raffo describes her as “looking for a sacrament in exile.”
This was Raffo’s first time acting in Michigan, where her roots are, since she left for New York 30 years ago.
“Heather Raffo is a prolific writer of our time and she’s also a real voice for our community so to be able to produce her play in this community is a privilege,” said Burkett, adding, “It’s really exciting to watch people coming from diverse backgrounds watching the same story and experiencing it together.”
“Working here on this piece has probably been the most fulfilling experience I’ve had working in the industry,” said Doran Konja, stage manager.
Konja is a theatre artist and grant writer who has worked in Detroit and Chicago. Feeling burnt out, he had taken a break from doing theatre work for a year. But when the opportunity to work on a Chaldean play presented itself, one where all his family could go and see, he couldn’t pass it up.
“I felt I would do wrong by them by not working in it,” he said.
He and his friend Amanda Najor, who plays Maryam in the show, had read and been fans of this play since college. Najor is a Michigan-born, NYC-based actor who received her BFA from Western Michigan University.
“I was sobbing when I read this play,” she said. “It really touched me and reminded me of why making art is so important.”
She hopes that the play inspires the Chaldean community to hold onto their special culture and figure out what it means to them to be Chaldean, but to also learn how to be individuals here in America and “work toward a future that we want and makes us happy.”
Najor was also inspired by a woman, Raffo, challenging expectations and cultural norms. “To have a woman writing and starring in this showed me what is possible as a woman,” she said. “It’s powerful and makes me want to create art like that as well.”
The director of the play, Mike Mosallam, is an award-winning producer, director, writer for theatre, film, and television. Born in Dearborn, Michigan, he moved to New York in 2001 and then to Los Angeles where he has lived since 2011. He was drawn to the play by Raffo.
“She’s luminary,” Mosallam said. “She understands language and relationships and history and nuance unlike most. I’m honored to bring this play to life alongside her and this company of artists.”
Mosallam knew the producers of the Detroit Public Theatre for some time and absolutely loved the mission of the theatre. “I am in awe of what they’ve been able to accomplish in such a short time,” he said. “They really get it.”
Growing up in Dearborn, Mosallam only knew a few people from the Chaldean community. As he got older and his circles expanded, he met many, many countrywide. He feels that, like his own Lebanese-Muslim experience, the Chaldean community is not a monolith. “The rich diversity amongst the community is one to be celebrated.”
The Chaldean Cultural Center presents Chaldean Night at the Theatre on Friday, December 9, 2022. Ticket Price $60 Contact: 248-651-5050. Noura runs at the Detroit Public Theatre through December 18, 2022.