Beth Escapes to Baghdad: An Informal Theater Piece about Women's Agency, War and Peace Activism

This piece was read and performed by Berenice Fisher and Paula Ressler at the National Women's Studies Association annual conference July, 2007. The props consisted of signs, a placard, a puppet head on a stick, a garbage bag, and two chairs, upstage left and right. As the piece opens, Paula is seated upstage left.

Berenice:

[enters and walks to upstage center] When I see injustice and violence, when I haven't kept them at a distance or pushed them to the edge of my mind, a voice in me wants to shout: "No, don't do that!" I have this strong physical urge to stop what's going on. Sometimes, the words and actions just burst out of me from a very deep place.

[moves downstage left]

But, often, it's not so simple. I can't speak. My body feels paralyzed. I'm sinking in a quicksand of fear. I'm groping for a branch-something of value that I can grasp in order to extricate myself. I'm reaching out for hands, the hands of friends or comrades, so that their strength will help me-will help us all-to resist.

[moves downstage center]

This piece is about women's agency. It's about how feelings, values and relationships make it possible for us to take an active part in shaping the world. I'm going to tell a number of interwoven stories. They're based on my experiences and the experiences of other women. One set is about my mother and the period she spent in Palestine and Iraq before she met my father. Another concerns Palestinian and Iraqi women today and their struggles for survival and resistance in the face of occupation and war. The last set of stories takes place in New York City and involves my work in the feminist peace movement.

These are not stories with simple morals. Rather, I hope they'll raise questions, get us to talk more about how we can speak and act.

Paula:

[rises, holds up sign, and reads its message] Stories about Agency and Feelings

[walks to post sign on upstage wall; as she returns to her chair upstage left, Berenice takes chair upstage right]

Berenice:

The first story is about my mother, Beth. Beneath her calm and competent exterior, my mother was a frightened woman. Her parents fled Russia to settle in Canada when she was two years old. They never talked about pogroms or poverty, only about the wonderful opportunities they found in their adopted land. At the same time, my grandmother, Reva, constantly warned Beth to stay away from gentiles.

Paula as Reva:

They could turn against you and destroy you!

Berenice:

So, Beth was afraid of people who were different, of finding herself alone and helpless in a world of strangers. Yet, in what may have been the most important choice of her life, she took, what was for her, an amazing step into an alien world. This is the story she told me when I was a child, and when she told it her eyes would shine.

It was 1932. My mother was twenty-six years old, had graduated college and was working as a bank teller. She still lived at home, but she had a boyfriend: everyone assumed they'd marry. At that point, her parents invited her to join them in a 50^th anniversary trip to Palestine-where some of my grandmother's family had immigrated. Beth leapt at the chance.

When she got to Palestine, she studied Hebrew, met a lot of adventuresome young people, and decided to stay for a while, if she could find work. She dated a number of Jewish men. Some of them would disappear for weeks at a time, and she was quietly told to ignore their absence. They were members of the Haganah, that is, the Zionist underground.

Paula as Beth:

Two men I knew well represented the American organization buying...