Guest Blog: Lilac Yosiphon On The Universal Language of Love and War in ONE LAST THING (FOR NOW)

One Last Thing (For Now) is inspired by love letters from times of conflict in different cultures and languages. The production, written and developed over the last two years by Lilac Yosiphon with the ensemble, is a universal look at the language of love, the wounds of war and everything in between.

It was just the beginning of the First World War centenary, and I remember reading a postcard from 1914 saying 'All My Love x', and a last text from a soldier that was killed a week before but in 2014. Both said the exact same thing, only in a different time, a different place and a different language.

2017 has just started and it's going to be a very intense year of constant political uncertainty. It's going to be a year, much like the one before, that will have the potential to divide communities rather than unite them. Rather than respect and understand them. Rather than build bridges.

This show is important because it's an alternative to the news reports, it's a collection of stories inspired by love letters from the last 100 years all over the UK, France, Germany, Israel, Afghanistan, Colombia and America. It is not history, it is our story.

I remember the first time we all met in rehearsals and started reading these extremely insightful, moving and earth-shattering declarations of love with descriptions of warfare, the actual reality of living every day in active conflict. Some of us in the room had experienced war firsthand and some had only heard about it, or had no connection with war at all. It didn't matter - everyone was welcome.

The dialogue between the different members of the ensemble was life-changing, and a few months later, when we performed our sample of One Last Thing (For Now) at the Tristan Bates Theatre to selected audiences, it proved to us how important it is to make connections and find similarities between different cultures and different languages. There is a line at the end of the play that says: "We love... the same. Write... the same. Die... the same. But differently. Absolutely the same. But differently." The show explores those similarities and differences and the one simple truth.

We have to learn to live together, but we don't know enough about each other's situation so we can't truly understand each other. If we don't know, then how can we understand? If we can't understand, then how can we live together? Learning to live together starts with agreeing to know more about the people around us, whether they live around the corner or across the border.

I know this show will change something in the hearts and minds of everyone who'll watch it. It will give people the opportunity to look at their lives in a different way, a less scared way, a shared way. I know some audience members will be touched by the show because it tells stories very similar to their own, and hopefully they will feel represented in a show that gives a voice to an international, multicultural London as it exists today.

Some audience members might disagree with some of the stories being told because we approach known controversial conflicts in a new way, but we welcome those audiences too. We welcome audiences who are open for a conversation. Some audience members will recognise our love letters, because they read them, over and over again, thinking of what to say next. Everyone, every audience member, is welcome. That is the most important thing.

I feel eternally grateful to be surrounded by the company of British, European and non-European actors, designers and technicians who work and travel together in order to tell a shared story. Telling stories that are close to you can be a very terrifying experience, and you become vulnerable, but I supposed it has to start with us!

If you come and share One Last Thing (For Now) with us, then you will bring yourselves into that dialogue and allow us to make it your story too. I very much hope to see you there. You are all welcome.

One Last Thing (For Now) at the Old Red Lion Theatre 7-25 March

Photo credit: Laurie Field

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