The Orange Seller of Tangier
(A magical tale of oranges and women and deserts.)
From Tangier you can see the coastline of Spain. A port city, it attracts traders of both goods and people. It is a city filled with narrow winding streets, souks and souls looking for something that is both elusive and always for sale.
I spent six weeks in Morocco in 2014 on a writing residency with Green Olive Arts in the city of Tetouan. I’d just published my first novel and was working on the sequel. It was a transformative experience. Even though I’d been writing for years by then, it felt like the first time that I was really recognised as a writer. I had space to be a writer. I had people who brought me orange juice and Moroccan biscuits and made sure I had everything I needed to write to my heart’s content. It was a glorious time.
As part of the research for the book I spent time in Tangier interviewing people who were trying to get to Europe. They had all paid people smugglers to bring them from West Africa for exorbitant fees. Now they were stuck in Tangier trying to scrape together the next chunk of money that would help them cross the tiny stretch of ocean. Spain was so close they could almost touch it. And yet, few would make it into a boat. Many of those who attempt the crossing, drown on the way.
That book never saw the light of day, but years later, in an informal writing group, this story decided it needed to be born. It is a tale of souks and stories and oranges. But more than that is a tale of women with a deep yearning for something more.
In 2023 I pitched the idea of transforming the story into a short play. It was accepted and The Orange Seller of Tangier premiered at the Sydney Fringe Festival that year, starring Georgia Britt and Audrey Blyde and with an original score by French composer, Augustin Gressier.
The staging was an exercise in simplicity - white costumes, a white armchair and a bowl of oranges the only pop of colour. It was beautiful.
One of the things I love about this story is that it was inspired by a single moment in Morocco. I was sitting on a bus, opposite a young boy with a box of strawberries on his lap, that he proceeded to eat one by one. By the end of the box and the journey, his hands and lips were stained red.
That boy doesn’t appear in this story, but the joy of eating fresh fruit for the sheer delicious pleasure of it, certainly does.