Bashir Lazar

Of all the things I've seen at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, Bashir Lazhar is probably the one that stays with me.

It started life as a play in French set in Quebec, you can read a bit more here: Coolopolis: Bashir Lazar, quickie drama review: "It tells of an Algerian immigrant who loses his family to fire and then comes here, fakes teaching credentials and becomes a passionate and committed substitute teacher. However some of his methods are misconstrued by the bureaucrats, which leads to some conflict."
What I enjoyed about it was that I could tell it was working on several levels for me but I've not yet fully teased them apart, but it's a good feeling. There's some play with writing both on a blackboard but also on other surfaces and even on the characters themselves. This motif mixes with the theme of identity (with a subtext, I suppose, of narrative's role in identity formation). What I was left with, though, was the way that this version took what was evidently a one-actor play and put one another actor in who plays at the fringes of the monologue but at the end gains a speaking part which gives a sense of hope that, despite the bleakness of what has happened to Bashir Lazhar, our lives can nevertheless have a positive impact and enebale others to find their voices. Ironically -from my perspective- this atheist character illustrates the idea that in is losing our lives for others that we find it. Or perhaps, it is in opening our narrative out to others' stories, that our narration finds significance. Again ironically, because this perspective is explicitly rejected in the commentary offered by Bashir.

This is a moving play well presented. If you are going to the Edinburgh Fringe this year, go to see this play. It's in Assembly Two at 1425hrs.