Carla Grauls wrote the play Occupied in 2012 after a journalist internship in Romania. At that time, Bulgaria and Romania were entering the European Union and nationalist fears were flaring up in Britain.
The tabloids became her inspiration as absurd news stories surfaced of Romanian’s occupying the vacant spaces. A home left by a British family on holiday, an empty garden shed and a public toilet became prime property for the invasion. Britain was at risk of being ‘used by someone else’. The fear was validated in these news stories but with an absurd twist; as one family returned from holiday, the new occupants offered them tea; or the man in the shed offered a coca cola to his landlady on his discovery. These human interactions sparked Carla’s curiosity into what occupation actually meant between the two cultures.
The play is about two Romanian’s who kidnap an Englishman to learn how to be ‘English‘, whilst living in a dilapidated public toilet. British values are confronted by Alex, the Romanian character. He wants to live the British dream.
He relishes the coverage of Romania on the front page in the daily tabloids (despite the news being negative). Alex’s joy of being noticed, part of the national conversation and his congenial manners towards his hostage contradict the Englishman’s idea of what is proper.
But what is the right way to occupy?
Is there any right way to occupy?
When you invite a guest over, there is a general consensus is that you receive them with the hospitality in accordance to how long you want them to stay – a value system.
When inviting immigrants, a host country considers what is the exchange. Is it cheap labour? Is it access to factories in their home country? Will these exchanges provide limited rights of citizenship, thus protecting home citizens and their culture? Perhaps all the above.
The transaction is based on what each country wants. To maintain a position of power, the occupied country fabricates the ever-present threat of invasion and risk cultural dilution.
Someone who doesn’t know our culture.
Someone who doesn’t abide by our laws.
Occupying spaces come up against two sets of obvious conflict, one is territory/ownership the other is questioning the relevance of culture and heritage. Neither conflict is easy to resolve.
Entering into a highly populated city like London, not only shows that a disused Victorian toilet is still the host’s territory, but that their makeshift shelter is liable to eviction from others whilst remaining a neglected site. A claim of ownership over something unwanted.
The Romanian characters also exist in a mental state that is incomprehensible to the publicly perceived civility of the host. The violence in Ceausescu’s Romania translates to the violence living on the London streets, which transfers to the violence they bestow on their kidnapped victim. Their reasoning is based on prolonged violent treatment, and their solution for change comes in the same form. Their trauma becomes a form of their resolution to survive in hostile territory.
But when has a revolution ever been easy?
Britain has avoided the trauma caused by the revolution, unlike many of its European counterparts, namely because they negotiate a compromise.
However, can compromise always repair faults in the status quo? Any suffering caused by government policy can be repackaged as the responsibility of the invaders, outsourcing blame. When all the rights of immigrants are gone, along with those seeking opportunities, Britain will be left for the British.
Who will be to blame if these long-term social issues remain unresolved? Will culture revert to a ‘stiff upper lip’: the concept to accept hardship without question as a duty for your country?
Is suffering for good citizenry more palatable than suffering because people have the same needs as you?
In delegitimizing the voice of “invading hordes”, uncomfortable introspection was neatly avoided.
Perhaps it would have been wiser to engage directly in the difficult task of untangling territory and cultural issues that came into question. In retrospect, the EU immigrant issues were minimal to their collective contribution.
In these times of fast law revisions on this island, I feel perhaps putting one’s culture and nationality aside and engaging with people as people may have been better, than succumbing to the fear ‘of being used by someone else.’
You purchase the published play here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Occupied-Modern-Plays-Carla-Grauls/dp/1472587928