JEDDAH — The experiences of women can resonate across cultures and circumstances. That idea runs through the cast and crew of Lana Komsany’s play I Am a Woman. Tucked between shops, cafes and restaurants are the concrete walls of Storytellers, a theater venue in Jeddah, where a group of men and women, spearheaded by director Komsany, have worked tirelessly to portray the experiences and everyday lives of women from different backgrounds and circumstances. **media[2775542]** Structured as a collection of sketches and skits, the play moves between women occupying different roles and circumstances — mothers and daughters, working women and stay-at-home women — capturing the small, everyday moments of womanhood alongside experiences that are far more difficult to confront. “I Am a Woman is a space for us to tell the minute, daily moments of the experience of a woman,” writer Afnan Linjawi said. “The play, to me, is providing space for the female experience, for the woman experience.” The stories themselves did not come from a single imagination. Linjawi describes the play as a collective in the truest sense: stories came from her, Komsany, members of the cast and people in their lives. That is where the universality at the heart of I Am a Woman begins; recognizing how often seemingly personal experiences echo across very different lives. **media[2772970]** Speaking to the audience, Komsany recalled that recognition. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, all of us women—our lives are so similar. Our ups are similar, our downs are similar.’” She explained how that realization that made her feel she needed to “create this platform so that we could talk a little more openly about our stories, in a different context from what we’re always used to seeing,” She said.Komsani added she hoped theater could provide a space for audiences to reflect on experiences that are not always openly discussed. For Komsany, those stories were also deeply personal.She began writing the play in 2018, drawing partly on personal experiences from that period of her life.One of its pieces, ‘Khadj’ — literally translated as “scratch” — emerged from the feeling that the marriage had left a mark that, however much it healed, would never entirely disappear. **media[2772967]** However, her own experience was only one part of a much larger pattern.Growing up in Saudi Arabia in a house full of women, Komsany said she observed experiences and behaviors that appeared across generations and later recognized some of them in her own life. “I saw myself as a repetitive pattern of a lot of things,” she said. “I needed to look deeper into that and see where the issues were.”For Komsani, theater provided that opportunity. ‘I am a Woman’ does not shy away from subjects including harassment and sexual violence. Komsany deliberately begins with one of the production’s most difficult subjects, setting the tone for a play that places experiences often discussed privately before an audience. **media[2775554]** Yet the intention, she said, is not to single out or condemn people, but to put situations that often remain behind closed doors directly in front of an audience. “I made sure not to talk about people but talk about situations,” Komsany said. On the concern of whether the play could be perceived by an international audience as reproducing familiar stereotypes aboutwomen in the Saudi society, she rejects the idea that the experiences portrayed belong exclusively to one culture. “These are women issues that are international,” she said. “If we feel that the piece has reached that international level of what a woman deals with, then that’s the case.” In that sense, the universality Komsany spoke about shapes the way the play tells its stories. And not all of those stories are dark or traumatic. Some find their subject in something far more ordinary: such as dealing with gossiping women or wanting to be noticed by the person you love. **media[2775557]** For cast member Hadeel Tamim, who plays the roleof a young wife repeatedly trying to attract her husband’s attention. She waits for him, dresses up, tries different looks and cooks different meals. He comes home, eats and sleeps — or leaves to see his friends — barely acknowledging the effort she has made. “What I really like about this play it’s not just about gender roles and equality,” Tamim said, describing the sketch instead as a one-sided love story between a wife and her husband. While conversations around women increasingly center on recognition and empowerment, Tamim believes these quieter emotional experiences can remain overlooked. “Respect is the grounding, it’s the base,” she said. “Once there is respect for the woman, this means that the man actually sees the woman, he appreciates her.” That movement between the severe and the seemingly mundane gives I Am a Woman its broader canvas. And despite its title, those experiences are not being presented solely for women. **media[2772969]** Linjawi said the play may be primarily centered on women, but its audience includes young and older men, fathers, husbands and brothers. “It is something that is for everybody,” she said. Komsany takes that idea further. She does not believe women can be empowered in isolation from the men who share their lives. “If I’m going to empower women, I cannot empower women without empowering the man that is standing beside her,” she said. As the mother of a boy herself, that principle is also personal.For Komsany, the purpose of presenting these experiences onstage is not confrontation, but conversation.“I Am a Woman is a collective, is not meant to trigger anybody. It’s meant to showcase stories that are collected from women.” **media[2772962]** Linjawi similarly hopes audiences leave not necessarily with answers, but with questions — after having laughed, cried and briefly shared an experience with a room full of people they may never see again. “Most importantly,” she said, they should “walk away with a conversation that may one day create more space in their own lives.” It brings I Am a Woman back to the sentiment Komsany expressed to the audience: that despite differences in culture, circumstance and individual lives, there are experiences women recognize in one another. But recognition, for Komsani, is only the beginning. The aim is to bring those experiences into the open, allow women to see themselves reflected onstage and invite the men beside them into the conversation. Because ultimately, she argues, I Am a Woman is not intended as a battle between the two. “That I Am a Woman isn’t about rights. We’re not fighting or revolting,” Komsany said. “We’re just stating that we’re human. It could be called I Am Human.” **media[2772968]**
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