Babylon: Beyond Borders
Bush Theatre, Shepherd’s Bush, 2019
Header image: Detail showing Marduk (god), the most important god in ancient Babylon. Babylon 2017, by Mouayad Sary.
Home from the elderly woman
by Lieve Carchon
Lieve is a 71 year old actor/performer who has lived and worked on several continents. She can work in 5.5 languages.
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Home from the Elderly Woman
'Partir, c'est mourir un peu'!
Yes, I left home, first gradually, then came back and now I'm gone for ever!
But HOME hasn't gone: The house is still there, prone to decay however hard still trying to stop this.
It got burgled last X-mas, the beautiful glass in lead windows still waiting for the craftspeople to repair them.
It is very unfair and painful that people can be so brutally intrusive.
It is even more painful that I can't let go!
I am stuck to the house, the only place I have ever known from birth to adulthood. It is not only my life but even more my soul.
I can't lose my soul, I can't let go.
Where in life in general, I don't cling to the past, I don't spend time reminiscing, I am now absolutely incapable to sell or even rent the house with content. I am not Faust, I don't sell my soul!
Even the smallest bit of paper evokes a sharp memory.
I know, it all doesn't make sense, it is too sentimental, not realistic, not pragmatic.
But that's the way my mind works.
Home is still a witness of an important part of my life, of me!
Will my home collapse in the long run?
So will I!
People after me will chuck everything onto a container. A horrible thought!
But I won't see it; I won't be there any more.
'Instead of plain English we spoke coloured': Duffy, London, Babylon
Introduction by Katie Webb
A celebration of London, home, Babylon
Katie Webb
Home from the Elderly Woman
Lieve Carchon
Coffee in Ethiopia
Titlail Negussie Mekuria
Touch/Feel of home
Mediah Ahmed
On being American in Babylon
Aubrey Seader