Osamah Sami has taken Socrates’ dictum to heart: the unexamined life is not worth living.
So far the Melbourne-based writer and comedian has explored his early years in a film, Ali’s Wedding, a memoir, Good Muslim Boy, and its synonymous play, which picks up where Ali’s Wedding left off.
Sami seems to have packed several lifetimes’ worth of stories into his 34 years, but this play – in which he stars as himself – details one of the worst times of his life. Every night. In front of an audience.
“It’s draining. Last night I was a bit of a wreck,” says Sami, of the play’s opening night at the Malthouse in Melbourne. “I was bawling my eyes out.”
In the play, Sami’s marriage – the one that ended Ali’s Wedding on a high – is in trouble. He spends his nights bumping and grinding at Revolver night club, doing lines of coke and avoiding the myriad crises unfolding in his life. An intervention is needed and his father, played by Rodney Afif, books them both a holiday to their homeland of Iran.
But Sami is a sulky travel companion, more interested in the AFL score and playing with his phone than taking in souks and sights. Things take an abrupt turn when Sami senior dies of a heart attack and Sami Jr has to put his grief on hold to get the body home.
What unfolds next is a Kafkaesque nightmare of dealing with Iranian red tape of death certificates, logistics and burial law, as well as a road trip across Iran – to get to the Australian embassy – involving transport mishaps in the vein of Trains, Planes and Automobiles. Nicole Nabout rounds out the three-person cast, playing a range of roles from a homeless person to Sami’s mother. (Afif also plays multiple characters.)
The play is a taut, one-act 85 minutes, leaving the audience on the edge of their seats until the end. Knowing that it happened to Sami makes it all the more poignant.
The events of the play are “zero per cent deviation” from real life events, says Sami, whose real-life father – a highly respected Muslim cleric – died at the age of 50 in Tehran while the pair were on holidays. But certain things were left out or compressed for the sake of brevity. “We did lose a fair few of the obstacles of getting the body home.”
Born in Iran to Iraqi parents, Sami was largely raised in Australia, after the family emigrated in 1997 to avoid the conflict that enveloped Iran. To satisfy the expectations of his father and their community, Sami pretended to get a perfect score in year 12 and lied about winning a place in medicine at Melbourne University.
He attended classes and tutorials, without being detected by his parents or the faculty. While there he fell in love with a legitimate medical student, which was particularly problematic as his family was in the process of organising his arranged marriage.
This part of Sami’s life is recounted in the film Ali’s Wedding, and Good Muslim Boy starts where that story ends. But despite “Muslim” being part of the play’s title, the story doesn’t deal so much with religion as the relationship between fathers and sons.
“The story is universal: we are all part of a whole,” says Sami. “In one interview I got asked, ‘How do you feel as a Muslim?’ and I was like, ‘Well I don’t really think about it.’ I don’t wake up everyday going, ‘I’m waking up as a Muslim. I yawn as a Muslim. I go to the shower and shampoo and condition my hair as a Muslim.’ ”
Instead the play more easily fits into the “coming of age” category; it even features on the 2018 VCE (Victorian certificate of education) drama playlist. The script, a collaboration between director Janice Muller and Sami, took a year to write, as the pair went back and forth with edits.
“It feels like [my life] but it’s its own story as well,” Sami says, of adapting his own story for and with others. “Writing the play was a bizarre experience because I am removed from some of these events in terms of time – some parts of the play happened in my childhood – so it’s kind of memories.”
Sami keeps a diary, which acts as a prompt and guide to some of his writing.
“I do go back and reread my diary sometimes. But you start reading it and without knowing it, you’re flicking through and then hours go by and you’ve gone through a whole year – down the rabbit hole. In Iran I kept one from 1990 to 1994 but it’s in Persian [Farsi]. I alternate writing each week between the three languages: Persian, Arabic and English.”
What language is he most able to express himself in? “I find it easier to express emotion in Arabic – but Persian is poetic.”
• Good Muslim Boy is showing at the Malthouse in Melbourne until 11 March.
