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Photo by Adrian Fussell
SCENES FROM Aizzah Fatima’s one-woman show ‘Dirty Paki Lingerie’ at Manhattan College’s Smith Auditorium on Sept. 25. Inset below, props from the performance.
One-woman show tackles religion, sexuality, more wsperos@riverdalepress.com
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one-person show provided a revealing look into the lives of six different Pakistani-American women at a Manhattan College performance on Sept. 25. Aizzah Fatima wrote and researched the provocatively-titled play, “Dirty Paki Lingerie,” when she herself was a student there. “I just wanted to create characters I never see anywhere,” Ms. Fatima said, “so I just started reaching out to people in the Pakistani community.”
A class called “Going Solo” required her to create a one-woman show. Teacher Matt Hoverman helped Ms. Fatima craft the play. The six characters in Ms. Fatima’s show are based on real women, some depicted just as the artist encountered them in real life, others composites of several individuals. She said the play has changed a great deal over the years and continues to expand all the time. “I anticipate further changes,” said director Erica Gould, who has been with the show from the beginning. “There’s room for it to evolve.” Ranging in age from 6 to 65, the
women of “Dirty Paki Lingerie” illuminate the trials and tribulations faced by Muslim women in America, from hijab politics to sexual fetishization to embarrassment over what gets packed for school lunch. The play has received considerable attention since it debuted in New York City in 2011. “Dirty Paki Lingerie” has appeared at Masala! Masti! Mehndi!, the largest South Asian arts festival in North America, the Fringe Festival in Scotland and, recently, in the country where all the characters have roots. “Dirty Paki Lingerie” is also the first play to represent the U.S. at the International Theater Festival of Turkmenistan. Along with various international stages, Ms. Fatima and Ms. Gould always look for the opportunity to bring “Dirty Paki Lingerie” to universities. Roksanna Badruddoja, an advanced assistant professor at Manhattan College’s sociology department and the coordinator of the school’s women’s and gender studies program, long wanted to bring the show to her campus. Ms. Fatima and Ms. Badruddoja are both members of the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective. “There are very deep misconceptions around Islam and what it means to be Muslim in the U.S. and, within that, even deeper misconceptions about sex within the culture,” said Ms. Badruddoja. “Here Fatima is really trying to dispel the weird notion that Muslim women don’t have sexuality.” The assistant professor believes the
show casts a light on the universality of the experience Ms. Fatima’s characters face, and the humorous tone can make the heavy topics a little easier. “Comedy can be a good platform to bring some of these issues to the table,” Dr. Badruddoja said. After the performance, the three women led a discussion with audience members where they discussed the nature of the play and the visibility it gives Muslim women in America. “I think it asks more questions than it answers,” Ms. Gould said. “It’s very interesting for me to see how it speaks to people from different cultures.” No one else has ever performed
the play, but Ms. Fatima would like to see it reach wider audiences in the future with new performers. She and Ms. Badruddoja hope it will become a campus staple, like “The Vagina Monologues,” with an emphasis on celebrating diversity and giving women of color the exposure they deserve. “What I would love to do is see the play live on, without me, on college campuses,” Ms. Fatima said. “It would be great to have other actors. It can be redone in so many different ways.” “I’m doing this to have a dialogue around it,” she added, “which is why it’s even more important to bring it to college campuses.”
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By Will Speros