Bernice Afriyie | Arts Editor
Featured image: Izad Etemadi provides a modern take on the theatrical convention of males portraying female characters. | Courtesy of Al Smith Photography
Love with Leila is more than a story about an Iranian woman falling in love. Izad Etemadi uses this one-woman show to address the social and parental pressures that women of different cultures face. Etemadi uses his experiences and travels to inform the construction of Love with Leila, a double-bill play produced by the Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts alongside Christel Bartelse’s All Kidding Aside. On October 27 at 9 pm and October 28 at 7:30 pm at the Studio Theatre, be prepared to lose yourself in the intricate folds of Leila’s life. Excalibur had a chance to speak to the vibrant, outspoken creator of Leila before his show.
Excalibur: Can you tell me about yourself and what inspired you to pursue the arts?
Izad Etemadi: When I was five, my family and I were sponsored by an Anglican church to come live in Canada. I grew up in Victoria, BC, and I started performing when I was in high school: choir, band orchestras, improv and musical theatre. After high school I went to the Canadian College of Performing Arts in Victoria where I studied musical theatre for three years and after that I went to work for a couple of years in children’s theatre. I have done a bunch of original work and some musicals. I moved to Toronto a couple of years ago on a whim. I saw a ticket for $600 on WestJet and I thought “let’s go!”. I’ve been here ever since.
E: How do you channel all of your experiences into Love with Leila? Does that inform your writing process or performance?
IE: Leila was a character in a different show that I originally wrote called Borderland. She was one of four characters that I played and the premise of that show was trying to explore the idea of what my life could have been if my family never left Iran.
Being a gay man and an artist, those are two things that are frowned upon in that country and I assume that my life would be quite different over there than it is here. I started to explore that and I really wanted to have a female character in there so I worked with my director and we played around a lot. At first I just wore a headscarf around my hair, just for a visual effect, and then as I developed this character I played with sounds and different voices and movements. Leila just kind of emerged. I actually wrote her to be quite a serious character with a very tormented story, someone who never felt love or knew she was beautiful. Also, I wrote her as an older character. Then when I went on stage with her, the audience started laughing. They thought she was hilarious and I was really upset about it. I poured a lot of my emotions and insecurities into that character. But then when I performed her more I realized oh, she’s a comedian and I was able to take that pain and make people laugh with it. Each show is different depending on what the audience gives me.
People seem to have a good connection with her and I think it’s because she just speaks her mind and doesn’t hold anything back. I feel confident to say whatever I want in this character and not really worry about whether it’s going to offend someone, is it politically correct or is someone going to be upset about this. I let her say whatever she wants to say but it also comes from an innocent and vulnerable place and that’s one reason why it’s so easy to fall in love with her. The story itself is really about self-acceptance and growing up thinking that you’re not beautiful and you’re never going to find love. No matter what your background is, your race, your gender, your age, there’s a little bit of the story that everyone has experienced at least once in their life.
E: What’s something theatre goers would be surprised to learn about Leila?
IE: She loves Zac Efron and he’s her favourite celebrity. She’s going to make everyone dance with her whether they like it or not. When she’s not on stage, she’s a pop sensation. We’ve actually been working on creating an album for her. I’ve been working with a composer to create some original music for her that’s Leila-specific and that plays on stuff every person would know and we can all laugh at together.
E: Did you have any difficulties writing a script for her, especially because this is a one-woman show?
IE: Yeah I was terrified. Absolutely terrified. It was the first time I went on stage and thought, this is literally what I am thinking and feeling right now. Having had the opportunity to perform Leila many times, when it came to doing Love with Leila it was not as terrifying because I got through that experience already, but it was at first difficult because I am a man with a beard portraying a woman in a headscarf with an accent so I didn’t know if I was going to offend people or if the the story was going to resonate. As a solo performer those feelings come and go often.
E: How does your play relate to current positions in feminism, queer theory and the gay movement?
IE: I will preface by saying content-wise, we don’t really address gay issues head-on in the story because she is a straight woman. But I do think that just the whole idea of the show speaks to it in a silent way; I am a man telling this story of a woman and I am telling it truthfully and it doesn’t really matter whether I am male or female because at the core of this, it’s all about humanity. So although the content is not specific to gay rights, I do think it is making those statements by letting people see a man dressed as a Persian woman. You see drag all the time and that’s become a normal part of our culture now, thankfully, but here’s the next step: not all women dress the same. Some women look like this and it’s uncomfortable for some people to see a headscarf and it’s nice that at the end, people feel that they’re having fun with that person.
We need to add new stories to the pot because stories are changing. Sometimes in theatre we hear the same stories over and over again so I hope that anyone who sees this is inspired to go, hey, I can do that too, because at the end of the day no matter what type of art we’re doing it’s all about storytelling.
