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Interview with Ibrahim Saba, company member[Interviewer’s note: Toward the end of this interview Saba refers to drug deals made in the vicinity of the police station. He's referencing an example that came up repeatedly in the panel discussions: One of Skid Row's most popular drug markets is about a block from the police station, a fact that causes great frustration to Skid Row residents, as it reflects what they perceive as law enforcement's callousness toward the needs of the neighborhood. During the discussion, a Skid Row resident told a story: One day police officers showed up at her house and told her that there was marijuana growing on her roof, and that she needed to get rid of it. The woman hadn't planted marijuana on her roof (or anywhere else), and thought the officers had to be mistaken, and ignored it. Time passed, and the officers showed up again, and this time the woman allowed the officers to show her two small plants no more than eight inches high each, growing amongst potted plants on her roof, difficult to see even from close up. The marijuana had been planted by one of the woman's roommates. She asked the officers how they could have possibly spotted the plants, when she didn't even see them among her own houseplants, and they told her proudly that they had spotted them while testing some new night vision equipment on a helicopter patrol. The irony here is that the storyteller lives on the same block as the aforementioned popular drug market, where crack is sold openly, day and night. – F.L.] Ferdinand Lewis: Is this your first show? Ibrahim Saba: No, no, no, about the eighth, about three years. FL: And how is this one different from the other ones that you’ve done? IS: It has a more realistic touch, as far as something beyond the group. We are based on that real event. Other than that, other shows have been pretty much realistic, introspective of us, of people’s lives and living around these neighborhoods. It was more based on our own experiences and from there we come up with ideas, feelings. FL: How did you first start working with LAPD? IS: I happened to have played a role with John [Malpede], the director in a piece called "The Screens," which was directed by Peter Sellars. I met John, I played along with him in some things that was fun. Emanuel, another member of LAPD, was in that play, too, and they talked about they have this company and they would like me to come and check it out. And then I took it from there. FL: You live downtown? IS: Close, but not really downtown. Perhaps I am one of the few who is not exactly in the situation of living in downtown Skid Row and all that but personally I have an issue of not having exactly a precise niche, a home. I never lived in one place and stayed there. I’ve been moving around in my life so in that sense, there is some kind of "micro-homelessness." FL: I haven’t heard that before, micro-homelessness. IS: It can relate to any feelings that have to do with finding a home or a meaningful sense of a home. FL: Does LAPD’s work relate to that? IS: We did a play which – since this community has gathered people who have been stumbling in life, through perhaps, yes, alcohol and drug abuse, or lost some kind of home, lost track of goals and suddenly saw themselves on the street or with much less help than before. This part may sound negative, but actually the community that I’m going to talk about is like, after years and years, the people who come here actually tend to settle and make it a place of their own because they have found either identity with others, maybe a way of budgeting their lives and a little bit of a job here or a little bit of help here, maybe public assistance and at least from that manage a way of being on the street which is probably is a very bad, the worst thing. But then you have a lot of activities around downtown. You have the libraries, you have access to shows. Just taking a few steps, you pretty much are involved ,even though you’re not exactly part of it, but like the corporate world and the world of people with theaters around. So, in a way, they have made it a place to stay, and for years. It’s not a place to stay and get yourself sober and look for change and then go. It has maintained people around, and that’s why it has grown, also. Plus, the fact that more people get in trouble in life pretty much due to the consensus of drugs and alcohol, so it has grown and it has taken a shape of its own. Today, in this play, we have touched one of the senses, saying that since so much drugs has come in here, that we could say that there is a sense of not caring for it, for so much of it and affecting so many people in negative ways. There has to be a sense of not caring and that precise sense is seen around here in Skid Row, where there is a police station and drug deals going on around it and it’s exactly the same attitude, not caring about this population living around here. FL: What do you think that says to the people who live here who see that? IS: That they don’t care. I think they are ready for action. The ones who are a little more sober again. I think they feel that from one side they want to contribute to the society. Yet, I just think they are ready for action and maybe this is one of the ways of expressing themselves. Ferdinand Lewis is a founding member of The Ghost Road Company, an educator, writer and theater artist. He is currently at work on two books: "Ensemble Theater: An Anthology" and "Ensemble Theater: Traditions, Approaches, Strategies." He lives in Los Angeles. |
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