| Tena Stivicic - Interview - Cracking the invisible code |
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WHAT is it like to be an Eastern European immigrant living in Britain?
That's a question that leading Croatian playwright Tena Štivicic explores in a production at the Theatre Royal, Margate, on Wednesday and Thursday night. That she calls her play Invisible speaks volumes, but it is nonetheless, she says, funny, thought-provoking and touching. Although she says her writing does not specifically relate to her own experiences after moving from her homeland eight years ago to attend London's Goldsmith College, she admits that had she not moved away, she would have been less exposed to the immigration issue. She says she likes to "shake up assumptions" and deal with two sides: both the Eastern Europeans' experiences in another land and the Western Europeans' reactions to them. She said: "I feel a strong emotional alignment to both. I absolutely understand that people have prejudices and stereotype people – it's natural." She describes experiences of being "the other" and "boxed in" by others' opinions. "It sensitises you to a whole range of emotions. Eastern Europeans are far more vocal and overtly emotional. The British culture is very different, more suppressed. No one quite explains what is expected. I didn't feel like I'd quite cracked the 'code'. "You find yourself in a new environment where you have come to work and the only part of you the new environment is interested in is your working skills. No one engages with you as a person. "Migration is not a modern phenomenon, it has been around for thousands of years. The idea of nationhood is comical. We are all so mixed, if you go back two, three or four generations we come from so many areas." Thisiskent.co.uk - October 14th 2011 |
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