Racializ-ed/ing identities on stage: Muslims, angst and response in Snookered and Does My Bomb Look Big in This?

Abstract

The early twenty-first century covers the period when British Muslims found representation in British theatres more than ever before and introduced themselves to both White and non-White audiences with works that highlight their identity and culture. Although theatrical performances by British Muslim playwrights often deal with the sometimes homogeneous and sometimes heterogeneous Islamic cultures of Muslims, the thematic and character-based approach of most of the playwrights is related to the racial positioning of Muslim identity in the distorted narrative frame and White imagination. This article describes how the phenomenon of ‘racializ-ed/ing identity’ as a reflection of the exclusion of Muslims from the theatres as experienced by many minorities in the British theatre industry has been brought to the stage as a counter-attack by British Muslim playwrights. At this point, Ishy Din’s Snookered (2012) and Nyla Levy’s Does My Bomb Look Big in This? (2019) are discussed in the context of the racialization of Muslim identity and the representation of Islamic anger and response.