Jumping for Jordan in united colours
Image: Alice Ansara in Jump for Jordan
SOPHIE, an aspiring archaeologist, left home when she was only 20 – much to the shame of her traditional Jordanian mother. Six years later, losing sleep and petrified by the judgement of her visiting “mad Arab” Aunty Azza, she is forced to lie about her life, her career and the existence of her Aussie partner Sam.
Jump for Jordan won Donna Abela the 2013 Griffin Award, which recognises an outstanding new play for its authentic, inventive and contemporary Australian voice.
Set in Sydney’s west and inner west, the play is a searching portrait of a young woman trying to reconcile her love of her family and Arabic heritage with her own identity – an experience that is recognisable to countless second-generation Australians, no matter where their origins lie.
Donna Abela describes her play as being like a “disturbed archaeological dig site” in which the artefacts are “reality, memory, family history, anxious projection and insomnia-induced conversations with the dead.”
Iain Sinclair is the director Jump for Jordan, and he believed it covered new ground.
“It is a play predominantly about Middle Eastern women living in Australia and it is played predominantly by actors of Middle Eastern descent,” he said.
“Part puzzle, part kaleidoscope, part archaeological dig, this joyous exploration of a second-generation Australian’s relationship to the country her parents left behind will strike a powerful chord in so many of us ‘new Australians.’”
The cast features Alice Ansara as Sophie, Camilla Ah Kin, Sheridan Harbridge, Anna Houston, Sal Sharah and Doris Younane.
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