Shafana And Aunt Sarrinah

What do you do when you profoundly disagree with someone you love? Wearing a hijab is a touchstone of religious identity, but it is also imbued with a complex array of historical and contemporary meanings. In Alana Valentine's new play, the cultural meaning of the hijab has become a wedge between generations. At the heart of Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah is the relationship between an aunt and her niece. Both devout Muslims, the younger woman wants to put on a headscarf, the older woman tries to dissuade her. For Aunt Sarrinah, the hijab represents a world from which she has escaped; for her niece, Shafana, it is a personal statement of renewed faith. Alana Valentine has written a startling meditation on the clash between individual freedom and community reaction and, as academic Christina Ho acclaims, "a quietly insightful intervention that portrays what media headlines never can; the multiple meanings of the headscarf for Muslim women". (1 act, 2 female).