'Haven,' a one-woman play, looks at refugees in America

When Sara Kahn was 10 years old, her mother showed her a documentary on the Holocaust called "Let My People Go." It was Kahn's first encounter with evil, and it made a strong impact, especially a scene in which concentration camp guards scooped up skeletal remains into a wheelbarrow and dumped them in a pit. What she didn't know then was just how much those images would direct her life, leading her to the sites of mass graves in war zones around the world as a human rights worker.

"That image stuck with me," Kahn said. "I still see it in my mind."

But while the image was always there, the journey from childhood experience to a career in social justice was not a straight shot. After graduating from the University of Utah with a degree in musical theater, Kahn tried to make a go of it in New York as an actress before getting a graduate degree in social work from Columbia University. Now, at 48, she is integrating these three factors in her life into "Haven," a one-woman play with music about refugees and America that she will launch this month at New York's International Fringe Festival.

"The role of the artist is that we see what exists from our own perspective and we reimagine it," she said. "We put it through our own instrument, whatever that may be. For me it's storytelling and song. For someone else it could be painting. There's a certain amount of freedom."

In the 65-minute show Kahn tells the stories of four refugees seeking asylum in America: Lejla, a Bosnian child who witnessed the murders of family members, leaving her afraid to close her eyes in slumber or even to blink "because every time she does she sees the images"; Sula Kinteh, who as a teenager was taken from her family and repeatedly raped by soldiers in the Sierra Leonean war before being brought to this country and forced into servitude by human traffickers; Fareek, an Afghani detained on Sept. 12; and Albert, a former West African soccer star forced to flee his homeland. All have been involved with "Haven."

"They've told their stories over and over again in a cold, clinical, factual way when seeking asylum," Kahn said. "They've enjoyed the flexibility to recontextualize their stories and reach people on an emotional level rather than intellectual level."

Kahn weaves in her own story, too, from her Kansas City area childhood to her life as a New York actress and later Wall Street consultant, and then to her experiences in war zones in Bosnia, Kosovo and Cyprus.

Set to original music by Marc Smollin and Kelly Dupuis, the show is a return to the performing arts world for Kahn, who now hears many horror stories as director of the Cross-Cultural Counseling Center of the International Institute in Jersey City, N.J. She and her team started a mental health program to serve survivors of war trauma and torture, help them gain asylum in the United States, and assist with their resettlement.

Hahn decided that rather than use her performing skills for an evening of cabaret, she had a stronger gift to offer--her stories--that only she could bring to audiences.

"I hope people will begin to notice people who may look different or speak with an accent, the people who may be busing their table or working in their children's school cafeteria or cleaning their office building at night," Kahn said. "These people have amazing stories to tell. I hope people will reach out and ask them what country they are from and ask them their stories. I'd be thrilled if people come out and think about that."

Kahn sees "Haven" and her human rights work as part of her Jewish heritage.

"I was not raised in a politically active or politically aware household," she said. "We didn't sit around the dinner table discussing the state of oppression around the world, but it must be unconsciously or subconsciously transmitted. The core foundation of Judaism is 'heal the world, seek justice above all else.' On some level it's in our DNA and can emerge in unexpected ways."

Related Web sites

"Haven"

www.storieswithoutborders.org

The 2004 International

Fringe Festival

www.FringeNYC.org

[Retta Blaney's latest book, Working on the Inside. The Spiritual Life Through the Eyes of Actors, was Amazon's third best-selling book on Jewish spirituality in July; it remains among the company's 20 bestsellers on that subject.]

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