Heather Raffo looks at Iraq and sees beauty. This may seem bizarre for the majority of Americans, whose sole portal to the country is a constant stream of violent and painful images narrated by glossy newscasters.
But Raffo, who wrote and stars in “Nine Parts of Desire,” a play that opens Sept. 6 at the Geffen Playhouse, has also seen humanity and spirituality in Iraq, and has been sorting through her collection of images and stories for the past decade and a half.
Born to an American mother and an Iraqi father, Raffo was raised in the U.S. So while Iraq was a land of confusion for most Americans, Raffo was drawn to it through her compassion for her family.
“Iraq was in the news for about 13 years, but it was not necessarily on our minds in America. What news we did get was bullet points, but was not accurate in terms of understanding the people or culture,” Raffo said.
“For these 13 years Iraq was Saddam Hussein, and that was it. But I had about 50 members of my family living in Baghdad, and for me it was a much more personal issue.”
Raffo’s interest started with America’s initial conflict with Iraq in 1990 and evolved into an outpouring of thoughts on culture, freedom and gender. For more than a decade, Raffo was unsure how to express these thoughts, but knew she wanted to be a voice for the stories of Iraq that were not being told by the media.
“We understand very little about the culture of Iraq, and I felt I was a natural bridge between two cultures, as I was placed in the middle of understanding and loving the two. I lived in America, I’m not an Iraqi – and I felt that I was the right vehicle for telling the stories that would relate to Americans,” Raffo said.
Raffo’s creative process, which she refers to as a “13-year gestation,” eventually resulted in her one-woman play, “Nine Parts of Desire.”
The play looks at women and their personal liberation in Iraq. Raffo said she was fascinated by the role women play in culture, not in an anthropological or feminist sense, but more in a sense of wonder.
“It is not about Iraq oppressing women – it is about Iraq’s oppressive people. I look at it less as an Eastern-versus-Western issue,” Raffo said.
“Instead, the play looks at this deep feminine energy in society and asks, ‘What does that do to the masculine energy?’ I tried to capture what I thought was an inner Iraqi female psyche (that the news media) don’t talk about.”
While Iraqi women might not normally discuss these issues willingly, when given an audience like Raffo, they opened up and shared their stories. These women serve as the basis for the nine characters Raffo portrays in her play.
Raffo said she did not try to approach the women like a journalist, but instead revealed her own feelings and vulnerability so that they trusted her and candidly spoke without fear of judgment.
“When I went back and I read to them what I wrote, they said, ‘Wow, that was what I wanted to say but could not.’ It was not verbatim, but I captured their inner drive, their inner meaning – I was able to articulate a very personal experience for them.”
After what she describes as living a decade filled with thoughts about Iraq, Raffo decided to write the play in 2001. As an actress, Raffo felt the stage was the ultimate outlet for sharing these previously untold stories.
“Theater, better than any other medium, can deal with heightened experiences on a mythological level. In the space of one or two characters, I can remind you of a lot of soulful things that are happening in this cradle of civilization.”
Since the beginning of civilization, Iraq has seen tremendous turmoil. Still, Raffo said that when she began her reflections on Iraq during the first Gulf War, she never thought 13 years later she would fear for her family again.
“I remember when (the war) came close to starting again and watching TV when they showed that green (night-vision imagery) – it was the most horrific state of deja vu. It was like, ‘I cannot believe we are doing this again,’ because it had not left my memory from before.”
Rather than crumble under distress about foreign affairs and her family, Raffo created this play. While she admits there is added pressure playing all of the characters herself, she said it was necessary to convey the stories she has spent much of her life figuring out how to tell.
“I wrote a story that is poetic and deals with myths and characters and archetypes, like an ancient Greek play. For the most part, (this type of story) is what stage does best.”