The Hooves Belonged To The Deer, In Arms Collective at Edmonton Fringe Theatre. Photo of Tarragon Theatre production by Cylla von Tiedemann

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

Five years ago Edmonton audiences saw an explosive new play about an immigrant kid, Arab and gay, negotiating the conflicting calls of cultures and generations, trying to find his way into a new life.

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That was how we met Makram Ayache, a young theatre artist in the U of A’s Bachelor of Fine Arts acting program. For his play Harun, theatrically striking and tense with ideas, memories, thoughts, arguments, Ayache had mined the complications of his own experience as the child of Lebanese immigrants.

Since 2018 Ayache, who divides his time between Toronto and Edmonton, has become one of the country’s hot up-and-coming theatre artists. Witness the development arc of his challenging, grandly epic play The Hooves Belonged To The Deer, which opens Friday on the Westbury stage in an indie production directed by Peter Hinton-Davis. I heard it first in podcast form in 2021, commissioned as part of the Alberta Queer Calendar Project. A year later, as an audio play, it was part of Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times streamed series Queer, Far, Wherever You Are. And last April The Hooves Belonged To The Deer premiered on the mainstage of Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre, directed by Hinton-Davis.

And now, it’s come home. Back home to Edmonton, where Ayache says he “came of age” as an artist, where “so much transformed and took root…. Edmonton will always be home.” And back to Alberta where much of his play happens in a small prairie town — the parts, that is, that don’t take us to an ancient world, and a new creation mythology in the Garden of Eden.

12thnight.ca caught up with the playwright/ actor/ producer/ theatre-maker by email last week, to find out more about the seeds of his play, his theatrical vision — and the inspiration for Izzy, the queer Muslim teenage protagonist of The Hooves Belonged To The Deer.     

What is your play about? “The Hooves Belonged to the Deer is about how religion is weaponized against queer people. When Izzy’s family immigrates to small-town Canada, the young queer Middle Eastern boy becomes the salvation pet project of the Christian Youth Pastor Isaac. In his attempt to reconcile his sexuality and conflicting faiths, he invents an imaginary Garden of Eden where Aadam and Hawa (Eve in Arabic) have their lives turned upside down by the arrival of Steve, a white-skinned Northerner.”

Eric Wigston and Makram Ayache in The Hooves Belonged To The Deer, In Arms Collective at Edmonton Fringe Theatre. Photo from Tarragon Theatre production by Cylla von Tiedemann

A certain (maybe quintessentially Canadian) improbability attaches to your own immigrant story…. “My parents left Lebanon at the end of a 15-year civil war in the early ‘90s. Before I was eight years old I had lived in Abu Dhabi, Los Angeles, Edmonton, and then finally Oyen, where I stayed until I graduated high school in 2008.”

playwright Makram Ayache. Photo supplied.

Could you talk a bit about your experience growing up in conservative, white, Christian, small-town southern Alberta as a child of Muslim immigrants? “Oyen was a peculiar place to grow up in. On the one hand, there were people that really championed my artistic desires – particularly a teacher, Mrs. White, who introduced me to theatre very early after we moved there. And I had a great group of friends who, in high school, I was able to safely and privately come out to. This was diametrically in opposition to the other face of this town, one that was full of what I can now recognize as white supremacist, nationalist ideals.

“The September 11 terrorist attacks took place a year after we moved to Oyen, and Arabs became a negative focal point of media.  So I certainly had people who would tell me things like ‘your uncle looks like Osama Bin Laden’. That happened a lot in my childhood. Then in my teenagehood, I was outed in school and that became a really scary moment. Not in any sensational way; people weren’t violent or overtly cruel, to be perfectly clear. But there was bullying, teasing, snickering, and ostracism that caused a lot of psychological stress in those days.”

The Hooves Belonged To The Deer, In Arms Collective, Edmonton Fringe Theatre. Photo of Tarragon Theatre production by Cylla von Tiedemann

That high-stress environment sounds like a veritable collision of multiple worlds — culturally, religiously, at home, at school.… “It all happened concentrically and kaleidoscopically, so many worlds blending into worlds. At home I was Arab and I grew up in a family who loved being Arab, especially my dad. Politics was a regular conversation in our home. I was also deeply closeted and terrified of my parents ever finding out. At school I was Canadianized, an English-speaking, pop star-loving, book-reading, geeky artist-type with a group of strong friends whom I was able to be my truest of selves with.”

And does the Pastor of your play have a real-life prototype in the prairie life of the teenage Makram? “There was the Christian youth church I became part of from 12 to 18 years old. The pastor was a charming and generously spirited man who offered me a space of deep introspection…. But his motive was Christian conversion. By the time I was 15, he was the first person I ever came out to — but of course his belief was that I was demonically possessed. Wild. In retrospect, it is surreal to think I ever believed him. But in the moment, and really well into my early 20s I had to undo a lot of the misinformation and lies he espoused about how I was made….”

Was your entry point into “showbiz” as an actor? Were you already a writer? “In 2015 I graduated with a bachelor or education in drama. I taught for one year and I remember watching my theatre students with a sense of … envy…. I needed to try theatre and the artistic pursuit for myself.”

During my time in the BFA, I kept having a feeling of returning to my child self, the one that would scribble stories and draw pictures for hours on end. I felt a release and an ecstatic expression of joy. By the end of that year I’d written Harun and was welcomed into the Alberta Playwrights’ Network’s mentorship program where Kim McCaw helped shape so much of my formative playwriting knowledge.”

Is the optic of the outsider crucial to your work? “In so many ways I am an outsider, and in so many other ways I am absolutely centred. I’m extroverted, able-bodied, masculine-presenting, a cis-man, and I’m high functioning. These are all qualities centred in patriarchy and capitalism; I can’t ignore the reality of how those have served me. And in other ways I have spent so much of my life watching from the outside, particularly in childhood. An Arab in white Canada and a gay boy in a straight family and town really sculpted my views.”

Yours is a bi-city (or maybe cross-country) theatre career. Is this a deliberate complication? It’s a lot of work to do an indie production; you’re making the effort to ensure Edmonton gets to see The Hooves Belonged To The Deer. “Right now I feel being between two cities is right. I love the theatre community in Edmonton and I love creating and sharing work here. There is a rich sense of integrity for theatre. And Toronto challenges me and changes me in ways that I so welcome….

The Hooves Belonged To The Deer is an extremely Alberta story. It did well in Toronto; people really responded because a rural Canadian experience can be felt across this land. But I was able to build upon the dramaturgical and theatrical successes and learning of the Tarragon production, and refine, sharpen, strengthen, and focus the script. It feels like it’s all led to this production and I’m so excited to share it!”

Is there another Ayache play underway, in formative stages? The most immediate is Small Gods (At The Start of the World), which has a world premiere in Toronto next fall. It’s a huge, bombastic, queer comedy that follows the lives of five teens as they work in a mall and prepare to graduate high school. I love this play! It’s a big love letter to my younger self and a love letter to young and old queer people today. It’s a look at queer celebration, joy, and creativity. And it’s a comedy, which is new and exciting for me! I’m hoping to bring Small Gods to Alberta as well…. Truthfully, the mall they work at is definitely inspired by West Edmonton Mall.

I’m also working on a graphic novel that’s full of fantasy, magic, and queer Middle Eastern mythology. It’s been a huge labour of love and a great joy to explore storytelling through the medium of graphic novel writing and drawing!”

PREVIEW

The Hooves Belonged To The Deer

Theatre: In Arms Theatre Collective, with Edmonton Fringe Theatre

Written by: Makram Ayache

Directed by: Peter Hinton-Davis

Starring: Makram Ayache, Eric Wigston, Brett Dahl, Adrian Pavone, Bahareh Yaraghi, David Ley

Where: Westbury Theatre, Fringe Arts Barns, 10330 84 Ave.

Running: Friday through Nov. 4

Tickets: fringetheatre.ca