When a Rainbow is Black - Creator's comments by Moe Mustafa


Moe Mustafa

WHEN A RAINBOW IS BLACK. 

The performance tells three stories of physical and sexual assault that happen to homosexual people. However, the performance looks at these experiences from family and social point of view. It is an episodic performance that only focuses on the traumatic part of the story and the social perception.

Personally, the process of directing WHEN A RAINBOW IS BLACK has been hard and rough, every day I had to come up with solution, decision and most of all visualizing the heavy material that I had written in the script, in which one of the story is my own experience.

Working with professional actors, without knowing them beforehand, is challenging, but the key is to build trust between the director and the actors. As a director, I must assure the actors that I’m there for them and I won’t put them in danger. I have to let them know that they can rely on me when something happens.

All sorts of feelings come to me during the rehearsal period, which is one month. There are those days where I felt that I can’t carry on with this process but then in the next day you go to the rehearsal and you realize that everything fits together.

The work stays inside you wherever you go, the mind does not rest at all. The hunger and lust of the mind to constantly bring up new solutions, ideas, and decisions keep on going and overwhelming. However, this process with all its’ heaviness, roughness, and tiredness comes on a form of the most wonderful feeling, the born of the final coherent project on the premiere day.

Here are links about the project in Finnish media.





 Text & image: Moe Mustafa 2017