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The Satanic Verses

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4 views2 pages

The Satanic Verses

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gauravgagan8404
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We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The Satanic Verses

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Tobias Rott and Robert Gallinowski. Photo courtesy of Getty Images

Written by Salman Rushdie. Dir. Uwe Eric Laufenberg. Hans Otto Theatre. Potsdam,
Germany.

For the first time, The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie has been performed
on stage. The dramatic version of the novel by director Uwe Eric Laufenberg premiered
in March 2008 at the Hans Otto Theater in Potsdam, Germany. But what could be a
contemporary reflection on migration, metamorphosis, and the loss of faith—the central
topics of the book—turns out to be a rather harmless theatrical representation of the
plot, peppered with clichés. Instead of confronting the Rushdie controversy, taking into
account how the enduring conflict between ‘western civilization’ and the ‘Islamic world’
during the last two decades has evolved, Laufenberg stages a slim but varnished version
of the original without presenting a fertile interpretation. It is therefore little wonder that
the production, lasting three and a half hours, at times taxes the audience’s patience.
But let us recall some history: Twenty years ago, The Satanic Verses was first
published in England. India, the author’s country of origin, was the first to ban the book for
political reasons. Other countries with large Islamic populations followed. A few months
later, British Muslims burned the book publically in Bradford, England, due to passages
considered as anti-Islamic and blasphemous towards the prophet Muhammad. Bookstores
worldwide were threatened by fundamentalists for selling it; bombings of Penguin stores
took place in London and New York. In February 1989, the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini
issued a fatwa against Rushdie and all editors and translators publishing the book. Two
years later, the Japanese translator of the novel was murdered. The death sentence against
Rushdie, temporarily revoked by the Iranian government in 1998, persists today.
Considering these incidents of the past, it is hardly surprising that the theatre
premiere in Germany attracted both national security and interest of international media.
Bags were not allowed in the theatre; police officers protected the building. Even Bild,
the biggest German tabloid, which hardly ever writes about drama, published an article on
“Germany’s bravest Theatre.” Fortunately nothing fearful happened. Unfortunately, there
was not that much happening onstage either. Besides filling the change of scenes with
117
118 Book & Performance Reviews
flickering lights and the recurring sound of an explosion, The Satanic Verses is, all in all,
conventional theatre with a few provocative, dispensable elements. Just to name two:
In the opening scene, a female terrorist wears explosive devices instead of underwear
underneath her burka. In another scene, Saladin Chamcha’s diabolic appearance consists
of a costume with a huge plastic penis instead of a tail as in the book. At least from a

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German perspective, being used to experimental theatre like Frank Castorf’s Volksbühne,
this appears, at the most, an attempt to flavor a rather conventional performance with a
few radical ingredients in order to match the novel’s radicalism. In fact, the play is far
less provocative. And it loses most of the novel’s complexity, slimming the plot to a
mostly linear story of the two immigrants Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha. Little
is left of Rushdie’s literary mosaic, of his sampling and mixing, a form of pastiche that
should actually suit the art of theatre, being a hybrid art itself. Asked about his motivation
for staging the novel, Laufenberg’s reply sadly corresponds with this impression of the
performance. He simply wanted to give people the opportunity to get to know a book
with little effort that is difficult to read, a book known worldwide for its political impact
but hardly ever read (Die Zeit 3/21/2008). What a poor reason to stage such a rich novel!
The Satanic Verses’ richness lies mainly in its ambivalence and its ambiguity.
On the one hand, without doubt, it is a book that provokes faithful Muslims with a
secular and, at times, clearly offensive retelling of the life of Mohammad (who appears
as Mahound in Gibreel’s dreams and is played on stage by the same actor as Gibreel—
Robert Gallinowski, clearly the best of the ensemble). On the other hand, it is a
disquisition on faith and doubt from the perspective of the old Indian Mughal culture,
with which Rushdie identifies himself. From this second point of view, the book can
even be read as a Dastan-el-Dilruba, a love letter to Islam, as the scholars Sara Suleri
and Feroza Jussawalla have pointed out. It is this ambiguity, which characterizes both the
novel and its controversy that is lost on the Potsdam stage.
However, the provocation to most Muslims lies not only in Rushdie’s
representation of Muhammad/Mahound as a businessman, adding the ‘Satanic Verses’
with the three Pagan godesses in the Qur’an for strategic political reasons, but also in
the confusion between good and evil, between the sacred and the profane, the obscene
and the holy, which constantly accompanies the characters’ lives and their dreams in
the novel. Salman Rushdie himself has pointed this out in the famous 1988 Bookseller
interview in which he says that “most of our problems begin when people try to define
the world in terms of a stark opposition between good and evil, or in terms of racial or
national purity.” This statement could serve as a key phrase to relocate The Satanic Verses
in today’s world, where the division between good and evil is, over and over again, put
to the test. Cliché images like a terrorist in a burka, white actors in oriental costumes, or
the sound of explosions hardly seem to break down the conventional dualism of good
and evil. Laufenberg neither tries to deconstruct stereotypes of the Jihad nor does he
take sides in the Rushdie controversy. Rather, this production simply tells the audience a
story like any other, obviously avoiding any kind of political statement. If this is due to
fear of terrorist attacks, it may be understandable. Nevertheless, the production arouses
suspicion that it was mainly staged for PR reasons, to attract new spectators to a theatre
which is normally overshadowed by other more successful theatres in central Berlin, that
are less than a one-hour drive away.
Benjamin Wihstutz

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