From the Egyptian revolution and Israel’s assault on Gaza to anti-trans censorship, actor and activist Khalid Abdalla has never been one to shy away from standing up for what he believes in.
In fact, he sees it as his responsibility. After all, as someone who has witnessed the possibilities for overthrowing current systems and remaking better worlds, hope is a sentiment he holds dear.
Most known for his roles in the film adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, playing a terrorist in United 93 and portraying Dodi Fayed in The Crown, Khalid is now starring in his first solo show, Nowhere.
Playing at London's Battersea Arts Centre, Nowhere is directed by Omar Elerian, and written and performed by Khalid Abdalla.
Bringing together the personal and the political — the show is inspired by his involvement in the 2011 Egyptian revolution and proceeding counter-revolution — Nowhere explores colonialism, friendship and loss, asking how we got to where we are today and how to find agency in the chaos.
“My grandfather and father were both political prisoners, which is essentially what creates the circumstances for me existing,” Khalid reflects, considering the spark for his political consciousness.
“Maybe it starts on my dad's shoulders when I was three at my first Palestinian protest or the sense of the world I see when my family and friends are having conversations about politics. It’s what fundamentally animates the greatest intimacies of my life,” he tells The New Arab.
Born in Scotland but brought up in London, Khalid has lived across the divide of where he’s from and where he lives, going to Egypt at least once every year and having lived in Cairo from 2008 to 2016.
He has described this time as “profound,” joining protesters in Tahrir Square and becoming a founding member of Mosireen Collective, a group of filmmakers and activists supporting citizen media in Egypt.
Landing back in London the day after the Brexit vote before seeing Donald Trump sworn in as President of the United States a few months later, the world then locked down to fight a pandemic, in which George Floyd was murdered.
“When you travel between the two poles of the revolution in Egypt and this genocide right in this moment in Gaza, all of this reverberates historically and in the present, in your own history and your shared history,” he adds.
It was through these experiences that the seed of Nowhere was born.
The show’s title has many resonances – “in 2016, it was Theresa May’s ‘If you believe you're a citizen of the world, you're a citizen of nowhere.’ Now, its most powerful resonance is ‘nowhere is safe.’”
But the true meaning of the show’s title? “How do you negotiate a world in which a space of belonging is either one in which you are under threat or you are unable to thrive, unable to be open or share or feel safe? Where does it live in you?”
For Khalid, these points of crisis lead to a big question – “if not now, when? When do I attempt to live as aligned and embodied as fully as I can, in the knowledge that the world outside becomes dangerous? Unless you exercise courage, you don’t get to train that muscle. It remains dormant and you’re in this constant state of deferral. You reach certain points in which that's no longer acceptable.”
Describing the show as an ‘anti biography,’ Khalid wants to turn the tables on how we see the world: “We’re encouraged to see our path that we tread forward as something we have control over, and if we don’t succeed to internalise that. But I want to look at how the world is structured and how it creates our subjectivities, these very clear senses of who you can and can't be.
"When you live in an identity in which there are frictions, tensions and displacements, that becomes intensified. When you search that out, you start revealing structures, relationships and ways of relating to past histories that are deeply shared.”
It’s here the play finds its purpose, creating a space of possibility.
“We exist in a world of political ghosts, which we try to numb ourselves to or defer a relationship with. There comes a moment where you crack, and I’m trying to create a space for that, a place of political summoning," he explains.
"Every time I create it, even momentarily, I think ‘wow, it’s possible to be here.’ The aim is to have that space with audiences, who can then contemplate keeping hold of that when they leave. That's what happens in the revolutionary experience. You go, ‘That wasn’t a figment of my imagination.’ The burden of knowing that is an immense gift, and a responsibility,” Khalid adds.
It’s a responsibility Khalid takes seriously, vocally supporting Palestine and signing an open letter condemning Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre for censoring references to Palestinian and trans liberation in recent work.
Despite the boldness needed to speak out, Khalid says that speaking out has led to him feeling like his truest self.
“It’s always been hard in a painful way, but the rewards have been immense and surprising. Taking those stands means people can find you, or you can find them. One of the horrendous consequences of silence is loneliness. I have found territories, people and relationships, and engaged with people where I want to be,” he reflects.
As for the future, Khalid remains hopeful.
“I’m not a nihilist. I've seen and lived those realignments time and time again. You have to live within that space of possibility and hope, even if it's the only sanctuary you can find," he says.
"When you give that shadow of a doubt just a bit more time, it’s these fragile spaces that create the seed which grows to something extraordinary over time. Maybe I'm an idiot, but it’s kind of nice here. Even if I'm wrong, I would rather walk towards a horizon of progress and live with the people who want to walk towards it with me.”
Nowhere plays at Battersea Arts Centre until October 19
Isabella Silvers is a multi-award-winning editor and journalist, having written for Cosmopolitan, Women's Health, Refinery 29 and more. She also writes a weekly newsletter on mixed-race identity, titled Mixed Messages
Follow her on Twitter: @izzymks