The Bond Between Mother and Daughter Surpasses Cultural Differences
“No Longer without You” at Crossing the Line
By Haleh Anvari
Everything about Adelheid Roosen and Nazmiye Oral’s performance, “No Longer without You” seeks to create a sense of intimacy. The cast and crew stand at the door of FIAF’s Skyroom to welcome us into an Eastern style lounge with big cushions on the floor. After we take our shoes off, they usher us in to settle comfortably in the private world of Nazmiye, a taboo-breaking Turkish-Dutch artist, and Havva, her devout Muslim mother. The evening will prove to be anything but comfortable.
Here are two generations of women navigating their lives in entirely opposite directions, one holding onto the traditions of her old country, Turkey, the other embracing the liberal cultural mores of the Netherlands, the country where she was born and bred. Mother and daughter are airing their differences in public to address the disconnect often felt by first-generation migrants from conservative Muslim families raising children in a new liberal environment. Oral left her family in her teens to live an independent life, marrying (and later divorcing) a Dutch man of her choice, and becoming an actress, all to the displeasure of her family. She is now reconciled with her mother and both believe there is a need for conversation within a community that prefers to leave difficult subjects unspoken.
Despite all their efforts at making this conversation profound and dramatic, something about it was lost in translation, maybe literally so, as this was the first time the performance had been presented in English. Previously they performed in the two languages of the family: Oral’s part in Dutch and her mother’s in Turkish. For this performance, the mother’s words were translated by Seval Okyay, who provided musical interludes with her singing and playing of the traditional Turkish saz.
Oral controlled what often felt like a one-sided conversation. She paced the floor among the audience while her mother sat immobile on a chair facing us. Oral was active, vocal, and free to move, while her mother was static. Maybe this was a metaphor, but it turned the conversation into a monologue shouted at Havva, who was reduced to a talking prop that answered on cue, or worse, the subject of an interrogation. And while I was not sure if Oral was improvising, her mother’s part appeared scripted. The discrepancy between these two deliveries made the conversation stilted and unnatural. The gaps in the dialogue robbed the performance of any dynamism or dramatic consequence. Oral related their conflicts but failed to dramatize them.
This was symptomatic of a greater malaise, an undercurrent of condescension toward the mother’s outmoded ways. It spoiled the chance that the performance might challenge any prejudgments Western audiences may have brought into that cozy room. Havva often seemed reduced to a parody of a devout Muslim old lady. In one instance, Oral invited Havva to step down from her seat and re-enact her trip to Mecca, the holiest pilgrimage site for Muslims, by snaking through the audience with spectators joining her in what resembled an awkward conga line. At other points, she threw mints as substitutes for stones at her daughter’s indiscreet revelations of their history, riffing on another required ritual of the Hajj pilgrimage, the stoning of the Devil.
I waited for the controversial climax that had been promised in the show’s arresting flier, which depicts a naked Oral writhing in her mother’s arms, her scarf billowing around them. How would their conversation reach this astonishing pinnacle? And how would this devout Muslim mother deal with her daughter stripping in public? How does negotiating this shocking indiscretion bring mother and daughter closer? Positioning herself awkwardly at the foot of her mother’s chair, Oral made a labored gesture of rebellion by threatening to rip off her red blouse to expose her breasts, clearly relying on her mother to stop her. The exaggerated binary established on the flier — where Oral’s odalisque skin and scarlet lips contrast with the mother’s tight hair cover and loose traditional garments — began to dissolve. My question took a turn: is Oral as liberated as she claims to be?
In one of her quiet retorts, Havva, who is named after Eve, the first mother, says to her daughter, “I’m braver than you. I was the first woman to drive in my village.” For me this was the crux of the performance that could have shattered the stereotype of the traditional woman and her homebound life. But sadly the script did not dwell here. Instead, the real challenges of Havva’s own life trajectory, as she migrated from a rural community in Turkey to an unfamiliar urban environment in the West, paled in comparison to her daughter’s heroic departure from those traditions into modernity.
When Oral shouts “No longer without you Mum, I am going to claim you,” she is well aware that Havva has already consented to be claimed. The mother has crossed her own red lines to appear on stage to ensure she holds onto her daughter. She is indeed the braver of the two, and telling her stories, not as interjections but as her version of their family history, would have enriched this performance with the nuance that it was sadly lacking.
In an interview, Oral proclaimed this performance to be her mother’s greatest act of love toward her. And this may be its most poignant expression: the unbreakable bond between this mother and daughter who, despite their apparent differences, are made of the same independently spirited mettle.
