Interview: Crafting a Modern Epic of War, Myth, and Humanity.
Arif Silverman talks about The Godless War at the Lion & Unicorn
Arif Silverman is a writer and actor from New York, currently studying for an MFA in Collaborative Theatre Making at Rose Bruford College. The Godless War, his new one man show at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre, tells the story of a fictional nation’s sole survivor and the brutal holy war that led to its demise.
We sat down with Silverman to talk about the conflicts that inspired his writing, the process of collaborative theatre making and the challenges of writing an epic poem in iambic pentameter.
What led you to write The Godless War?
Before coming to grad school, I had this thought of performing an epic poem. I’ve written a lot of one person shows in the past, and I thought it would be interesting to explore the challenge of telling a new epic tale. We always hearken back to the Greeks and Shakespeare, and for good reason, they are excellent, but I was keen on writing a piece that felt like it had similar stakes. Then the crisis in Gaza started unfolding, and the piece felt inextricably tied to the horror that’s going on in Gaza. There are images from the story that are taken directly from pictures that I’ve seen of the atrocities that are happening over there.
How did you approach writing in iambic pentameter?
It was definitely a challenge. I’m also a songwriter, so there were similar rules of thumb. You have 10 or maybe 11 syllables to convey this meaning, and if you’ve already used three syllables how are you going to spend those seven syllables? Sometimes I’d write out what I wanted to say in a not so poetical way, and then look at synonyms, to condense it down to a line.
The piece is broken up into stanzas. Each stanza has four lines, and those four lines convey one idea. I was hoping that would add a sense of clarity to the structure of the piece, and make sure that nothing felt superfluous.
I love Shakespeare, and spent a lot of time studying his poetical language and the devices that he uses. I tried as hard as I could to adhere to that.
The Godless War blends Greek mythology with medieval South Asian aesthetics. What inspired this unique combination?
It has to do with my time at grad school, we did these Ancient Greek scenes, we had no production elements, no tech, nothing. You could feel the temperature of the room shift when we started performing this material, and that was really exciting.
Similarly, I am half Bangladeshi, and I was born and raised in the States. I don’t speak the language. I’m beginning to learn how to cook [Bangladeshi food], but it felt like a really exciting opportunity for me to get acquainted with my South Asian history.
The play explores the mental, physical, and spiritual cost of war. What message do you hope audiences take away from it?
We’ve got this projection of every single war in history, from prehistory to the recent attacks in Lebanon from Israel. I’m eager for people to contemplate the fact that war is as old as humankind, and ask “is that necessary?” “Can we imagine a world in which this doesn’t have to happen?”
Why did you choose a fictional setting for this story rather than a historical one?
I love fantasy stories, like The Lord of the Rings or The Poppy War trilogy. In fantasy there’s a lot of room to play. I could give myself permission to throw different elements together in a way that could feel coherent. A lot of this takes place in what would be the 1200s of South Asia, and it deals with the invention of gunpowder. It felt like telling a story in this fantastical setting could allow for a confluence of ideas that felt particularly exciting to me.
The title The Godless War is intriguing. What does “godless” signify in the context of the play?
When I was conceiving the show, I thought about the Ancient Greek stories. In a lot of those the gods choose a side. In this narrative, a very violent ideology is waging a holy war against a more peaceful ideology. Neither of these people have deities that are answering their prayers, so both are terrified. I thought that that would be an exciting way of subverting Greek narratives.
How are you approaching playing multiple characters?
It’s quite a daunting task. I’m working with my two really wonderful directors [Kazeem Akinsanya and Neha Hemachandra]. We’re playing a lot with physicality in rehearsal, making sure each character has a very specific physical language. I’ve given each character a song, and I’m listening to the music that I’ve chosen for them, and then getting to a place where that physicality and understanding of who that character is will do the work for me. My two directors are really not interested in caricatures. We want to create clear and fully real characters without simplifying them.
Are you planning to take The Godless War to other venues?
We’re at Bridge House Theatre on March 20th and 21st, and then we will be at Bread and Roses Theatre from July 8th through 12th. We want as many people to see the show as possible, but we want to keep developing it. I’m still completing my MFA and whenever you’re working on a show, you want to keep improving it and hopefully build excitement around it. I’m really excited to be making theatre and it feels really wild and really exciting. I’m eager to share it.
The Godless War has opened at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre and runs until 25th of January.
Tickets can be purchased from the following:
Lion and Unicorn Theatre – performances between January 21st and 25th
Bridge House Theatre – performances between March 20th and 21st
Bread and Roses Theatre – performances between July 8th and 12th