by Rani Moorthy
Directed by Iqbal Khan

World premiere presented in association with Library Theatre, Manchester and Lyric, Hammersmith during November 2006

Do you know what is going on under your own roof?

Rani Moorthy hit the zeitgeist in this world premiere of her new stage play about a Muslim family coping with life in today’s Britain.

Huddled in a Britain of extraordinary events, an ordinary Muslim family gathers during Ramadan to pray and to break the fast. The youngest son hurriedly hides a rucksack, and in the course of a long day’s journey into night family conflict erupts and buried secrets are exposed.

Exploring the pressures that terrorism and fundamentalism have brought, Rani Moorthy brings her generous warmth and vitality to a family catapulted into crisis. As attitudes to Islam divide the generations and a new world order challenges religious identity, this powerful and vibrant drama asks ‘Do you really know what is going on under your own roof?’

In Too Close To Home Rani Moorthy has created five complicated and flawed characters that are surprising, multidimensional and often funny. These characters drive the plays narrative, resulting in an accurate portrayal of the complexity and humanity of the family. Their inner and outer conflicts allow us to reflect on the challenges and prejudices faced by people who might lead surprisingly similar lives to us all.

Head of the family Ghulam Mohamed has adopted Sufism as his personal belief, setting him apart from his family. A mystical strand of Islam, Sufism is the most personal and magical aspect of Islam and has at its heart the use of stories, fables and narrative puzzles to illustrate deep philosophical meanings of life and peoples relationship to God. He deals with the world and his family by telling Sufi tales that not only mystify and frustrate his family, but deflect any potential conflicts that arise. To him his religion is a sanctuary but to his family it is his escape. Ghulam has a secret left behind in the Pakistan of his youth that will come back to haunt him.

His wife Kalida is irreverent and has a feisty, wicked sense of humour that helps her cope with problems. She doesn’t quiet fit into the Muslim community that judges her. Taking a pragmatic attitude to religion she wanted her two sons to adapt to life in Britain. Her visits to the local community centre give her a secret life apart from her family.

These rounded, complicated and difficult parental characters breath fresh life into British Asian drama which is so often preoccupied with second-generation issues. Lifted from their stereotypical role as oppressors of their children, Ghulam and Kalida offer a more mature prospective of British Asian life with unexpected consequences.

Sayeed, the eldest son, is a committed Muslim, actively involved in the local mosque and on intimate terms with visiting Muslim clerics. His rebellious teenage past contrasts with his current purer than pure attitudes. Although his white British wife has become a devout Muslim, he has reason to keep his own young family separate from his parents and brother.

The youngest son Saleem has taken a gap year from education and hangs around with the neighbourhood kids listening to hip-hop. He has just missed the start of the new university term and his family are beginning to worry. Drawn into a hidden world of Islamic indoctrination he has his own secret plans.

Raziya is Ghulam’s young sister, not much older than her nephews. Raziya’s relationship with the family and with Islam is fraught and complicated by her unhappy childhood looking after her dying mother in Pakistan, and a secret that lies much closer to home.

Living in a post 7/7 world the family’s religious identity is challenged by forces within and without. Bearing witness to the increasing unease with Muslims in areas of British society, they begin to turn inwards. We get a glimpse into the pressures on family life that terrorism and fundamentalism have brought.

The play is set in a family kitchen-diner, during the holy month of Ramadan, when prayers precede the breaking of the fast at the kitchen table. The sounds of the muezzin (the call to prayer) and Ramadan radio suffuse the proceedings, mingling ancient sounds with the rap and hip-hop culture of the youngest son.

Creating Too Close To Home

Too Close to Home was inspired by work Rani Moorthy undertook with groups of young Muslims in Oldham, Bolton and Manchester in the late 90’s. Some of the young people had a tenuous hold on the basic principals of Islam, and seemed to experience divisions between the practice and philosophy of Islam. This coupled with racism made some of them deeply insecure or conflicted about their religious identity. One young man believed until he was eleven that Ireland was Pakistan; his parents had made the homeland sound so close and thus mythologized.

Like many classic plays Too Close to Home is rooted in the universal theme of family, and how values imparted by family life form the crux of our future choices and conflicts. Rani has been influenced by the humour of Brian Friel’s ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’, the heart wrenching emotion of Arthur Miller’s ‘All My Sons’, the immigrant family struggles of Eugene O’Neil’s ‘Long Day’s Journey into Night’ and the intrigue of the film ‘Monsoon Wedding’. Through a traditionally written stage drama Rani aims to provide powerful insights into the family life and personal secrets of an ordinary family in the wake of extraordinary world events and current cultural circumstance.